


Venom

by Taemanaku



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Ancient Egypt, Citronshipping, M/M, Prison Sex, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-29 16:16:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12088674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taemanaku/pseuds/Taemanaku
Summary: My secrecy for his secrecy. But I had a few more days to pry it out of him. His entire existence, from the angry scar on his face to his tight-lipped hostility: I would know it all. Citronshipping. Complete!





	1. Nut Steals the Sun

It was so quiet, I almost didn't catch it. I paused long enough to listen, bathed in my own sheen of cold sweat, poised to sprint if the noise was human.

There it was again.

An intermittent swish against the sandy floor, dragging over the grains of dirt and my own ears.

Shit. I wet my lips out of habit and dropped back against one of the columns in the hypostyle hall, letting the shadows consume my shape. If I had any luck, it was just an animal. At this point, even a viper would be friendlier than a guard.

The rustle drew closer. A breeze blew through the rows of columns, cooling my warm face and sticking the linen to my clammy skin.

Then, an accompanying sound—and when I recognized it, my heart clamped in my throat—footsteps. I ceased to breathe.

But abruptly I realized this could indicate only one thing: a trespasser. Why else would he, like me, skulk around these sacred rooms so late, after Nut had entirely swallowed the sun and dotted the heavens? The intruder was quieter than me, whoever he was. He crept as silently as a snake gliding through water, causing a minimal ripple in his surroundings.

I followed him.

He was bold, striding across the middle of the hypostyle hall, where the moonlight fell from the window slits in the roof, lighting his path. The rest of the hall was submerged in darkness, and I took to the columns, hugging their contours and moving only when he moved, letting his noise mask my own.

The pale light caught his blood red cloak, making the color glisten and drip as he moved. Instantly, I recognized the rustling noise: the cloak dragged on the sand behind him as he walked. Though I couldn't see his face—I stayed at least seven columns behind—I guessed he couldn't be much older than me.

He cut through the second hall.

Here I had to drop back. There were no windows in the roof and the columns were a dense thicket on each side of the hall. One loud step, one loud smack into a column and he would hear me, so I had to leave some distance. The hallway was dank; the very air was thick and oppressive because this chamber was seldom in use. Only the pharaoh and the high priests could step here.

He entered the sanctuary.

I didn't follow immediately because this room was small and he would hear me at once. But on this cool night, standing in a chamber restricted to civilians, surrounded by walls sculpted with rituals and gods and sacrifice, I shuddered. I knew I shouldn't be here.

And the next thing made me freeze.

"So what are you hesitating for?"

His voice rang out in the silence, reverberating against the walls and deafening me. It was pitch black in the sanctuary, but I heard the intruder shift, turning toward me.

"You followed all this way but won't come into the sanctuary?"

My throat went dry. I pressed myself against the gateway between the second hall and the sanctuary, begging the walls to swallow me up. How could he have heard me? My footsteps had been measured and silent. I had made no noise at all.

The next sound chilled my bones: He laughed. Low and loud, hurtling at me like a stampede.

Suddenly, he approached me. I couldn't see two feet in front of me, but he moved as surely as if it was noon. Silently, as though slithering over the sand, he was at my side and his breath was hot and humid on my face. I didn't even have time to realize I should move.

He shoved me hard at the wall, keeping a grip on my shoulder, and I felt something cold and sharp trace my neck.

"I don't think I've had the pleasure," he jeered.

He moved the knife leisurely against the edge of my jaw, without breaking skin. If nothing else, I could see his smirk.

"Hand it over," I finally spoke, keeping my voice low and demanding.

He paused, as though finding my resistance amusing. "Hand what over?"

"What you just stole from the shrine."

He shifted, and I heard the chink of gold clashing on gold in his cloak, perhaps the edges of the object clanking together. He paused again, calculatingly.

"So you knew what was hidden in the shrine? I'm impressed. No doubt you're from the palace, to know something like that."

His body was warm, barring my escape, and I could smell the musky perspiration on him. He leaned closer, and the tips of his wild hair prickled my face. My hand edged toward the belt hanging on my hip, while I prayed he would stay distracted.

"Of course, if you're from the palace, you're not a very good thief. They indulge your every whim, so how you could possibly need anything?"

I grasped the hilt, now it was just a matter of pulling carefully…

He chuckled. "You probably thought you were being careful, following me so far behind. That's a pathetic way to—"

I sprang.

Grabbing his arm, I twisted it around until I heard him scream. But before he could retaliate, I pulled the dagger from my belt and slashed through the darkness, making three strokes before I heard the rip of fabric and a sharp intake of breath.

"You asshole," I said in a low voice. "You don't even know shit about me, so I don't know how you can make these assumptions."

I heard him breathe with effort. Then, a rustle of fabric—most likely his attempt to stem the blood flow.

"And you're awfully slow, for someone so arrogant," I continued, drawing toward him.

I still needed the object in his cloak, but he was stepping back, and all I heard was the shuffle of feet over the dirt floor.

"Bastard," he growled, his voice at least a good ten feet away.

I moved forward carefully; he was armed and pissed, not the friendliest of combinations. Following the sound of his heavy breathing, I angled the knife in front of me and stepped over the packed earth.

"Oh shit," he breathed, suddenly going still.

I instantly realized he wasn't reacting to me. I turned, glancing back at the gateway of the second hall, and the sight stopped me in my tracks.

A pale light beamed in the blackness, coming toward us. The possibilities were limited: this building was forbidden to villagers and it was the dead of night.

"A guard."

He was still in the hypostyle hall, at least, but he was nearing the sanctuary quickly; he would be on us in mere minutes.

The punishment for breaking into a sanctuary was steep, but bearable—I would live.

But the punishment for stealing from the shrine was death.

I had to get out of here; no gold was worth my life. Forgetting entirely about the thief and the object in his cloak, I broke into a run, heading in the opposite direction of the approaching guard. The darkness pressed all around me; there was probably no immediate way out of the sanctuary, but the adrenaline made me reckless.

It wasn't long before I found the opposite wall. I smacked right into it, dashing into mud brick with full force. Ignoring the ringing in my head, I pressed my hands over the walls, hunting for an opening. There had to be a door here somewhere. How else would the high priests leave? There couldn't only be one way in.

"Are you an idiot? If you're looking for a door, you're shit out of luck," the thief whispered, somewhere behind me. "They build these things for rituals and festivals—not for thieves."

I cursed, realizing he was right. "So what do we do?"

I felt childish, asking my attacker this sort of question. And the use of we was just sickening to me.

"Well I don't see any other option, do you?" he snapped, breathing with difficulty. "Kill him."

A chill ran down my back, hearing him say it so plainly. I had never killed anyone in my life. I was a thief, yes, but not a murderer.

The torch light drew closer. I bit my lip hard, realizing the guard was probably near the second hall gateway.

"You can't do it, can you?" the thief sneered. Despite the venom in his words, I still heard the panic. He was as tense as I was.

I dodged the question. "Can you?"

"Easily," he said bitterly. "But I'm no help to you now. I can't feel my arm and I'm bleeding like hell."

"Shit," I muttered, and ran a hand through my hair, thinking. The sanctuary was small, maybe twenty by twenty feet overall; we couldn't hide. The guard's torch would light up the room and give us no refuge. The gateway was tall but narrow; we couldn't slip past him.

"We're stuck," I concluded.

"Thank you," the thief said in exasperation. "I realized that. Now what are you going to do about it?"

I heard footsteps. The torch shone at us brightly, illuminating the sanctuary. I could see through the darkness, faintly, and the first thing I looked at was the thief.

He had a handsome face; boyish, with high cheekbones and full lips. He was holding his torso with his left hand, bunching the red cloak around the knife wound, and allowing his right arm to hang limply at his side. He caught me staring and glowered, no doubt hating me for injuring him at such a critical time. The scar under his right eye marred his otherwise flawless face.

I edged toward the gateway of the sanctuary and crouched down to wait, letting the shadows hide me. I took a deep breath, but my pulse quickened regardless. I was about to kill a man. I was about to seal my death, if I failed.

The thief had hidden by the shrine, where the shadows were abundant. I glanced at him, but he just stared at the gateway, his jaw set.

The footsteps neared the gateway. Nearly the whole sanctuary was lit. I waited. Just a few more seconds now—

The guard had stepped two feet into the sanctuary when I attacked.

Swinging the knife forward, I pierced his shoulder, causing him to shout and drop his torch. It rolled over the dirt floor and flickered. The guard's eyes landed on me and it took him only a split second to understand it all.

He blocked my next attack by throwing his arm forward, letting the gold bracelet on his arm strike my knife. A sharp clang rang out, and while I was momentarily thrown by his quick reflexes, he drew the khopesh at his side and brought it to my neck.

"Drop the knife," the guard ordered, and I obeyed without word. The knife landed at my feet with a thud.

He pressed the sword against my neck, hard enough to draw blood.

"What are you doing in the temple?" the guard asked, narrowing his black eyes at me. "Answer me."

I glanced toward the shrine instinctively and he followed my gaze, understanding instantly. He must have realized that the only thing of interest in this temple was the gold object from the shrine.

"A thief, then," he spat, and forced the blade deeper into my throat.

This was it, then. I would be killed rather than kill. I shut my eyes, feeling warm liquid drip down my neck.

"Kill him! Kill him, you fucker, what are you just standing there for?"

I snapped my eyes open, and glanced at the shrine to see the thief emerge from the shadows. We locked gazes momentarily, and I understood his intent.

The guard looked back and allowed his arm to go slack in surprise. In that instant of distraction, I grabbed the sword from his hand and elbowed him in the side, causing him to drop back and wheeze following the hard shove.

I brought one hand to his throat before he could react, and used the other to bring the khopesh to his chest, where I imagined his heart would be. I didn't pierce the skin, but simply held the sword at him in preparation. This had to be done quickly or not at all.

The guard's eyes were wide, bright with fear. I could kill him. I could stab him right in the heart to make it quick; all I had to do was press the blade forward.

All I had to do is forget that he was human.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from his expression. Caught in surprise and fear. He must have been praying to the gods right then, reliving his life in a split second and wondering if he had any regrets, any unfinished dreams.

All these unspoken thoughts roared at me, shattering my conscience.

My hand dropped from his throat, and my grip on the sword went slack.

I lost my chance.

The guard recognized it, because the next thing I knew, he'd slammed me against the wall and I was sliding down with my head ringing and my vision fading.

I heard the thief cry indignantly and then the clinking sound of chains going around my wrists.

I closed my eyes and slipped away, before it could all go to hell.


	2. Bastet Beckons

I awoke to the sound of chewing.

And the smell of horse shit.

I struggled to sit up, only to feel my entire body go rigid with pain. My head hurt, my wrists hurt, my back hurt, and my throat was stinging as if it had been sliced open. I pressed my fingers to my neck and felt dried flakes of blood slip off.

"So you're finally awake," a voice drawled. "You're gonna have to get used to life outside the palace, princess, and get up early like the rest of us."

Oh, hell. I craned my neck to stare at the man sitting on the other side of the cell, momentarily blinded by the sunlight streaming in through the thin slit near the roof.

"Where am I?" I said slowly, my tongue leaden and disgusting in my mouth.

The thief was biting into a radish, leaning against the mud brick wall and sitting on the red cloak he'd thrown over the dirt floor. He was wearing only a piece of navy fabric wrapped around his hips, along with gold bracelets around his biceps, wrists, and ankles, and tan leather sandals on his feet. I stared at him for a prolonged moment, and felt something squirm in the bottom of my stomach at the sight of him casually sitting half-naked like that.

"Where do you think?" he said around a full mouth. "We'll be here long enough to be tried and punished, so don't get too comfortable."

I snorted. The little square room was filthy. It was completely empty save for the urine on the walls and the shit in the corners; the floor was hard packed dirt and the only light streamed from the narrow window adjacent to the roof. I analyzed it briefly but decided I could probably only stick an arm through the slit. There was a door opposite the window, but it was locked.

"How long are we gonna be in here?" I pushed off the ground, ignoring the pain shooting through my body. My wrists looked horrible. They were completely bruised, and my skin was sliced where the chains must have dug in too deeply. Thankfully, our chains had been removed so we could move easily.

"Not long, since the festival is starting tomorrow, and the guards have better things to worry about." The thief inspected a foul spot on a slice of bread before tearing into it regardless.

The Fidelity of the Nile. I had entirely forgotten about the festival. There had been murmurings all around the palace since June, the priests whispering that this would be a hard year and that the staircase measuring the Nile's rise was over 27 cubits—in short, it was flooding. The river waters had already spilled across the banks and the harvest was getting swamped. Buildings that were anywhere near the river would soon follow; the mud brick would wash out and we'd be rebuilding for years.

Despite this prediction, the annual festival would go on uninterrupted. We would celebrate even when we had nothing to celebrate.

I turned my attention back to the thief, who was taking a large gulp of water out of a clay pitcher. Without the cloak covering his chest, I noticed the discolored scars along his torso and shoulders. And the little gift I'd given him, the cut along his abdomen. It reached from his left side and looped up to just above his belly button. Blood was smeared all around it, so he'd clearly made no attempt to clean it.

I couldn't be entirely sure, but it didn't seem like his right arm was broken. Dislocated perhaps. He was only using his left hand to move the food and the pitcher, and his face was tinged with pain.

Almost as though reading my thoughts, he started examining his own arm and trying to move it. He flexed his fingers, which he could do with no problem, but the part where his arm met his shoulder was immobile. He bit his lip as he tried to reposition it, as though the pain increased.

Then, he noticed me staring and his eyes promptly narrowed.

"Are you just going to stand there, then?" he asked coolly. "The least you could do is help me fix this."

I was momentarily transfixed by his gaze. He was a creature thoroughly bred in the desert, both handsome and dangerous, like a smooth, curving scorpion, and I wasn't sure how close I wanted to get. But I did know something about dislocated arms and how to pop them back, so I approached him with only the thought that I couldn't let him sit there and suffer.

I sat down on the ground beside him, and felt my heart beat faster when we were face to face and he was scrutinizing me. I narrowed my eyes at him, remembering the last time we were nearly nose to nose and he'd had his knife to my throat. But I decided it wouldn't do me any good now to have him whining and nagging that I was responsible for getting us into this mess, so the very least I could do was fix his arm. Besides, there was no telling how long we'd be stuck in here. Together.

"Well?" he questioned. "Do you know what to do or are you just—"

I grabbed his right arm roughly, causing him to yelp.

"I know exactly what to do. So if you want my help, you'll shut up and let me do it."

He said nothing, but I could tell he was absolutely livid. He was simmering with defiance and no doubt the urge to cause me as much pain as I'd caused him. I felt a rush to the bottom of my stomach as he glared at me. Despite myself, I found that expression enticing.

Pulling his right arm forward, I bent it at a 90-degree angle and brought it parallel with his chest to make it into a perpendicular shape. The thief flinched, most likely as a tremor of pain coursed through him. I tried to concentrate on the task, despite all the minor details I absorbed about him. The little white scars marking his arm, the shape of his sinewy muscles as they moved in his shoulder, and even the imperceptible way his breath seemed to speed up. He watched me fastidiously, but after a moment, I realized he wasn't watching to study my every move. He was simply watching my face, as though captivated. When I locked gazes with him, he instantly looked away.

"Alright," I started. "I'm going to pop it back in now, and you have to sit absolutely still. It might hurt when I move it, but bear with it."

He scoffed. "You don't think I'm in enough pain already? A little more won't hurt me, so get on with it."

Fine, I thought, figuring that at the very least, I had warned him. I grabbed his arm by the wrist, keeping my other hand locked around his biceps to hold the rest of the arm still. And then slowly, at the pace of the tide rolling in, I rotated his arm back out an entire 180 degrees. I only moved his forearm, so that the rest of the arm was motionless.

He growled as I moved it slowly. His hand fisted of its own accord and I heard his teeth gnash together to keep the agony from showing. I persisted, listening for the telltale pop. But after moving the forearm completely out, I still didn't hear the sound, so I repositioned his arm back to be parallel with his chest.

"Why didn't it work?" he snapped. His turbulent eyes had dropped all pretense that that this didn't hurt.

His snarky mood did nothing to alleviate my own. "Because, dumbass, it takes a couple of tries. Did you think it would be that easy? I told you to bear with it."

His jaw tightened, but he said nothing else. He watched me closely as I began rotating his arm again, probably wondering if I was just trying to hurt him some more. But I had sustained and fixed a lot of my own shoulder injuries, so I wasn't just exhibiting a high level of self-regard when I said I knew what I was doing. Because I really did.

On the third try, his shoulder finally popped back into the joint. Instantaneously, his expression cleared as he relaxed with relief. I dropped my hands from his immediately, not wanting my touch to linger. He moved his arm experimentally, pivoting it back and forth.

"Well?" I asked, standing up.

His eyes narrowed again. "Well what? I hope you don't expect any thanks from me."

Of course I don't, I thought sarcastically. His behavior alone had me wondering if he'd ever thanked anyone in his life. Satisfied with the state of his arm, the thief picked up the pitcher again and started drinking from it.

That action reminded me that my own throat was parched and that I hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon.

"Where did you get the food, anyway?" I asked, remembering that he'd been eating something when I first woke up.

He slammed the pitcher on the floor and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "The guard brought it just a while back. He said not to expect anything else because this is our meal for the day."

I inspected the area around him, but saw no more bread or vegetables.

"And where's my half?" I asked levelly.

The thief just smiled at me.

My jaw clenched. Alright. So this was how we'd play. This was clearly payback for yesterday. At the realization that I wouldn't eat all day, my stomach grumbled weakly.

The thief stared at me, raking his eyes over me. Suddenly, his face hardened and the earlier, thinly-masked flippancy was completely gone.

"Look, I don't know if I made it clear enough, but I'm not making friends," he said. "Especially not with the person who got me into this mess. So don't expect any bullshit like sympathy from me, because that's the last thing you'll get."

My fists clenched unconsciously. I didn't want to get angry— then I would become an even more selfish, destructive person than I was now—but it was all I could do to stop myself from marching across the room and smashing his face in. I guess I was wrong when I'd thought that fixing his arm would keep him from whining at me.

"I don't see how you can blame me for this," I said carefully, trying to keep my temper from sparking.

The thief's eyes narrowed. "Oh, really? Because every way I look at it, it's your fault. If you hadn't hurt me, I could've helped. I could've done the one thing you didn't and killed the guard."

And suddenly it was too late. He'd struck something in me and I was reeling.

"First of all, I just fixed your damned arm, so you could be a little more appreciative of that. And second of all, you started it. You threatened me the moment I stepped into the sanctuary. So what did you expect? That I would stand there and let you kill me? Of course I retaliated!"

He was on his feet. And livid, because I could see the fumes sparking over his white hair.

"I didn't do shit to you. I didn't even cut you, so why would you need to retaliate?"

"You had your knife to my throat," I said through gritted teeth. "Was I supposed to stand there and watch as you mutilated my face, or murdered me, or whatever the hell you were planning to do?"

Before I knew it, we were just feet apart, and I didn't know if it was him or me that had slashed the distance. But I found my back against the wall.

"That's still no reason to do this." Although he didn't gesture, I instinctively glanced at his right arm and the gash on his torso. "And don't give me that shit about 'but I just fixed your arm!' because that didn't help me at all when it most mattered. Yesterday."

I ran my tongue over my bottom lip, my mouth going dry. He had me there; the injuries were a little extensive, but I wasn't about to concede that. "You were probably planning to kill me, so that's nothing by comparison."

Wrong thing to say. Instantly, he shoved me into the wall and his face was two inches from mine.

"Why didn't you kill him?" he asked forcefully, and I was momentarily thrown by how heatedly he was looking at me. "Why did you dislocate my arm and cut up my stomach—but didn't kill him?"

I stared back into his grey eyes, and felt my anger give way to shame.

"I couldn't," I replied, trying hard to sound angry and failing. "I couldn't do it."

It was quiet suddenly. The thief stared at me for a long time, keeping me trapped and grasping my tunic tightly in his hand. His eyes were feverish, the color of storm clouds, and his brows furrowed. His fingers tightened around the fabric.

"You're worthless," he finally spat. "The worst criminal I've ever met."

My eyes widened. As meaningless as his opinion was to me, that hurt. The words pierced my skin like vicious fangs.

"I've been a thief all my life," he continued. "I've been stealing from the markets since I was five and from the tombs since I was thirteen. I've been caught many times—but you know what? I escaped every single time. And do you know why?"

I returned his level gaze, staying silent.

"Because I always killed first."

That shouldn't have been news to me, but somehow it was. For a moment, I imagined all the lives he hadn't spared, all the people he had murdered for his own benefit. He couldn't have been much older than me—sixteen or seventeen—but how many lives had he already claimed?

"When you're a criminal, you sacrifice something very basic," the thief said. "Your humanity. You have to sacrifice it; otherwise you'll get nowhere. Otherwise you'll be where we are now—stuck in an old horse stable, wondering if they're going to stake us, or drown us, or cut our heads off in three days."

He said the words as if spitting them, laying them on me like heavy bricks. As if this was all my fault.

"So yes, I do blame you for this," he finished. "You had the chance to prevent this. If you were a proper criminal, you wouldn't have even hesitated. But you're just pathetic—"

I swung at him.

At the odd angle, I managed to strike his left cheekbone. He staggered back, startled by the sudden attack, and brought his hand to his face.

"Fuck," he muttered, staring at me wide-eyed. "What the hell was that?"

I was so angry that I was trembling. "You can't stand there and expect me to take this bullshit. Are you really saying that it's wrong not to kill? I may be a thief, but I don't lack morals. I'm not just going to take someone's life over a chunk of gold."

For a moment he was stock-still, as if unable to believe what he was hearing.

Then he charged at me.

His fist connected with my nose with a crunch and I slammed back into the wall, hitting my head against the brick. And that's when we both stopped being civilized.

We were on the floor, a sprawled mess of limbs and fabric and blood, and I couldn't recall if I'd shoved him or he'd thrown me down. I couldn't feel my face, but my nose was bleeding, the blood reddening my tunic and spilling over the thief's chest and face. One moment I was on my back, smelling the putrid dirt and watching as he landed punches on me, and then the next moment, I found myself sitting on his thighs and trying to grab his throat.

Then something changed.

I had grabbed his hair and was squirming to better pound his head into the floor, when I inadvertently pressed between his thighs and he gasped.

"Shit," he breathed.

I paused, caught off-guard by the way his pupils dilated and his mouth went slightly ajar. I felt my own blood rush down, just at the sight of him flushed and turned on. Our words had been heated, yes, but it was now that I realized they had been tinged with something else as well. A skirting attraction, laced between our insults and each incidental glance and touch. And I'd be damned if now, given the chance, I didn't explore it.

I grasped his hair more tightly and, more curious now than angry, I budged again, grinding our hips together.

He screwed his eyes shut, squirming. I felt it twitch beneath mine, stiffening, despite our layers of clothes. He was definitely reacting to me, and he had obviously forgotten all about the fight two minutes ago.

I placed my hands on his arms, pinning him to the floor, and dragged my hips again over his hardening dick. It was delicious, whatever it was that surged through me. But I didn't bat an eye while he arched his back and tried hard not to moan. He looked entirely fucked, his white hair a tangled mess across the floor while he looked up at me with only sex in his eyes.

"Don't," he muttered, as though just realizing we weren't supposed to be grinding and should actually be throttling the hell out of each other.

I smirked and sat back on his thighs.

"Don't worry, I wasn't going to pleasure you anyway," I said frostily, standing up. I was hard too, but I turned so he couldn't see it.

He glanced at me after I stood up, looking like a child whose toy had just been taken. He lay on the floor for a few minutes, breathing shallowly. Most likely waiting for his dick to go down.

"By the way," I turned briefly to look at him. "When you said you always kill first, you lied."

He looked up at me in confusion, waiting for me to finish.

"You didn't kill me."


	3. Cry for Osiris

"Bakura."

The thief glanced at me sharply.

For the past several hours, he'd been sitting at his edge of the room—we'd silently drawn the lines after the fight—and picking at the brick wall with a dull dagger. When I'd asked him how he'd managed to sneak it past the guard, he'd simply smiled and stayed silent.

"That's your name, isn't it?" I asked. During our stretch of uncomfortable silence, I'd busied myself with thinking. And I'd finally recognized him.

The thief said nothing, but his wary reaction betrayed him.

"I heard the priests at the palace talk about a young thief named Bakura who's becoming notorious for high-ranking crimes," I continued. "He's mostly known for robbing tombs and the odd marketplace for food or horses. The King of Thieves, he calls himself," I scoffed. "He must be arrogant as hell to choose such a dramatic name."

At that, the thief—yes, I was sure now; it was definitely Bakura—bristled, glowering at me from the corner of the room.

"I don't know why you're acting like I picked that title myself. It's what the villagers started calling me a year or two ago," he replied, indulging my humor. "I would have personally picked something more refined, like Scarface or the Avenger."

"Both overly dramatic," I said, sitting against the wall and listening to my growling stomach. Though I had to wonder about the choice of Avenger. "I would just stick with Bakura."

Bakura turned back to the brick wall, continuing his carvings. I wanted to ask about that strange occupation, but decided it must be a nervous habit.

"So you're the thief they've been talking about?" I asked again. "You've actually robbed all those tombs?"

He scoffed, offering his turned back for a response. But a moment later, he turned to address me.

"Yes, I have, or weren't you listening to me at all? I've been a tombrobber since I became thirteen. So that makes it—five years now?" He glanced at the ceiling, as though it might confirm his age.

I let out a small whistle, impressed despite myself. I had certainly heard the stories.

He had killed a soldier a few years back, perhaps one of his greatest offenses against the kingdom. Stabbed him, right in the heart, just after the soldier had cut a line down the right side of his face. My sister Isis—named after the goddess who cried every year for Osiris—had told me the tale.

Bakura had stolen some fruit from the marketplace, not the most precious loot, and had gotten into an argument with the soldier. Rumor has it that the soldier had said something striking, because Bakura's face had gone entirely still. Bakura had raised his dagger and approached him with deadly fury. The soldier had borne his sword down on Bakura's face, but the thief had merely laughed as the blood slipped down his face, and had cornered the soldier to drive the dagger deep into his chest.

It was hard not to wonder what exactly had happened. What had turned a harmless marketplace robbery into a bloodbath? I had a feeling Bakura wouldn't answer me, even if I asked.

"Why are you doing that?" I finally asked, after the grating sound of bronze scraping the brick became unbearable.

Bakura turned to me with what I'd silently nicknamed The Expression. It consisted of a condescending scowl and a slight, skeptical raise of his right eyebrow.

He placed the knife on the ground. "I envy your ability to sit there for hours, without moving a single muscle, I really do, but not all of us can be that calm while waiting to be killed."

Following this subtle kick in the ass, he returned to what he was doing. Nervous habit, like I thought.

It was hot in the horse stable. It must have been late afternoon, because the brick building had become scorching and sweat was dripping down my forehead and beading over my lip. My nose hurt like hell; Bakura must have broken it, because it was still trickling blood, which I occasionally wiped off with a corner of my shirt.

To repay Bakura for eating all the food earlier, I had drunk the rest of the water. So we were even, but I was still thirsty. Sweltering days like this reminded me of my childhood, when I was locked up in the palace for punching some kid or other. It was always my fault, according to my father, even when it was the other kid calling me names.

I broke our unspoken pact and stood up to cross the room, shedding the unpleasant thoughts like excess skin. Bakura didn't even look up as I dropped down beside him, keeping a good three feet between us. He still had the knife, no matter how dull it was. Besides, it was the sharp temper that made me wary.

I leaned back against the wall and rested my head on the brick, closing my eyes. My stomach no longer grumbled, but sat like a lead weight, a sinking punch in my gut. The sound of metal against brick continued beside me.

Bakura's voice snapped me out of my daze.

"Why were you trying to steal the diadanhk?" He asked in a forced manner, as though he didn't really want to start a conversation, but his curiosity was begging to be satisfied.

"The what?" I asked, glancing over at him.

He looked curious despite himself, and the lack of any sort of belligerent expression on his face frankly surprised me. He really looked handsome without a constant scowl. So much so that I had to look away when something more than hunger rushed to the bottom of my stomach.

Bakura frowned. "The diadianhk. You know, the thing we were trying to steal from the temple last night?"

"Oh, that. I didn't realize it had such a fancy name," I shrugged. "Well, I've heard it's made out of pure gold, so why wouldn't I want to steal it?"

For a moment, Bakura was nonplussed. As if he'd just discovered that the sun wouldn't rise tomorrow morning and was struggling with the concept.

"So, you just stole it for the hell of it?" Bakura clarified. "It would have made no difference if, say, instead of the diadankh, there was just a chunk of gold in the shrine?"

"Yep," I replied. "That would have made no difference. Gold is just gold, right? I was planning on bringing it into another village and selling it—"

Suddenly, Bakura lunged at me. He grabbed me by the shoulders, wearing the dirtiest look he could muster, making my heart jump.

"You idiot!" he growled. "Do you even realize what we're talking about here? A diadanhk is not just some worthless piece of gold you can sell."

After our earlier incident when I grinded against Bakura, I was now hypersensitive about where our body parts were. And right now he was two inches from my face, his hands were clutching my shoulders tightly, and the rest of his body was hovering above mine. I made a shameless note that his crotch was about three inches from mine.

"Is it really?" I said distractedly. My skin was just slightly fairer than that of most Egyptians, so I knew I was blushing. And his eyes—Gods, I wanted to ravage him on the spot.

Bakura drew back slightly, as though to gauge if I was joking.

"I don't believe this. You were seriously trying to steal it just to sell it?" He looked utterly disgusted, as though I'd just told him my entire diet consisted of eating babies. Half to himself, he muttered, "I guess it's a good thing you failed to steal it. Gods, selling it!"

I pressed myself against the wall, finding that my heart was still jumping and he still smelled as musky and dangerous as last night.

"I don't understand why you're overreacting. What's this diandunk thing used for anyway?" I humored him. This object was of no interest to me whatsoever. Gold was gold, and that's all I had ever cared about.

But Bakura seemed reluctant to explain himself. He pursed his lips, and finally detached himself from me.

"It's a whole lot more valuable than gold, let's just say that," he replied. He grabbed his knife from the floor and continued to scrape against the brick. As an afterthought, he said, "More valuable than a weapon, an army even."

He'd piqued my interest. So it was a sort of weapon, and packed a shitload of damage. Now I did feel like an idiot for thinking to sell it.

"What's in it for you, then?" I asked, trying to resurrect the conversation. "I guess it's a nice thing to have, but does a thief really need something stronger than an army to protect himself?"

"Yes."

Bakura's answer was solid, as though the word itself was impenetrable. He offered no other explanation.

I stared at him, realizing he was serious. He was clutching the dull knife firmly in his left hand and driving it at the wall, more forcefully than before. I sensed suddenly that entrapment was something foreign to him; his was the response of an animal, captured and rustling in its cage, both vulnerable and aggressive.

"What is it that you're really after?" I asked after a pause. "There's something that drives you, more than gold and riches. More than just the title, King of Thieves. What is it?"

The knife dropped from Bakura's hand.

He stared at the wall sightlessly. I'd struck deeply, and by his reaction, I wasn't sure I was ready to know.

But after a speechless moment, he looked me dead in the eye with the most despicable glare I'd ever seen.

"What's with this sudden interest in my life?" he asked coldly. "Why don't we redirect our attention to you? Why are you—palace-born and able to have anything you could ever want—also a thief? What's in it for you to steal when you could have it tenfold at the palace?"

The question that had me forever running. He was perceptive, I'll give him that.

"That's none of your business," I returned with equal frost.

"Then neither is my motive, so drop it. I already told I'm not making friends, so spare us both the bullshit of trying to get to know me."

Fair enough. My secrecy for his secrecy. But I had several more days to pry it out of him. His entire existence, from the angry scar on his face to his tight-lipped hostility: I would know it all.

Before I could strike another nerve, there was a scraping noise at the door as the lock was unfastened and the crossbar removed.

The door swung open to reveal the guard I'd tried to kill last night. He was a burly man with sharp, beady eyes and a thin line for a mouth, reminding me strongly of my father. Following him in was a beautiful, raven-haired woman dressed in gold and expensive linen.

The sight of her had me both thrilled and uneasy. Her jaw was set and her blue eyes hard. A weaker man would have wilted under that gaze, but I had seen it too often to feel reproached.

"Isis," I stood up to greet her.

"What is the meaning of this, Marik?" She demanded without precursor. "I'm told that you were caught in the temple last night, trying to steal the diadankh. Is this true?"

"Yes," I said promptly. Living with someone who had access to a person's past and future brought its downsides, such as the inability to lie. Somewhere behind me, I heard Bakura groan at my transparency.

Isis pursed her lips. "Do you realize how serious this is? A prank is one thing. Stealing from the kitchens or archives or armory is one thing. But stealing from a temple is unforgivable."

I was about to retort when her eyes had me faltering.

"Stealing from a temple is stealing from the gods themselves," she continued. "You know this. You know the consequences, so why did you do it?"

I opened my mouth, feeling my tongue grow heavy and unwilling to move. Why did I do it? You know very well, Isis. You know and you ask me regardless.

"For the same reason I did everything else," I finally replied, meeting her gaze unflinchingly.

The humor was gone. There had been times, after I'd thrown sand in her make-up jars or stolen a horse to ride across town or set fire to a pile of documents, when she had shaken her head and rebuked me, but always with underlying amusement. As though, Oh Marik, you're always going and doing such stupid things.

Not this time.

This time it was, Marik, you messed up. I can't guarantee that you'll get out of this alive.

"I can't help you," she said, her throat tightening. "You realize that, right?"

I looked at her stoically, but something chipped in me. There had never been a time when I couldn't get out of it. Isis had always spoken on my behalf. He's going through a tough time. He's misunderstood. He just wants attention. He'll grow out of it.

Ever hopeful, Isis believed what she was saying, and so did my father, and the cook, the librarian, the horse keeper, the maids, and the priests. I never believed it.

But the price for misbehavior had never been as steep as it was now.

My life.

And it took the sight of my beautiful sister, on the verge of tears, for me to finally realize that.

Isis stepped forward and embraced me, no longer able to maintain her scolding tone, and I wrapped my arms around her, feeling like I was six again.

"I'll talk to the guard," she whispered in my hair. "I'll try to get them to delay the trial for a little while."

My throat constricted and I couldn't even whisper thank you.

"Be careful, Marik," she continued, as softly as a breeze. "They never keep prisoners for long; they get rid of them as quickly as possible."

My eyes widened. It had never struck me that I was insignificant enough to be murdered without a trial. Disposed of quietly, accidentally.

Isis tightened her arms around me. "The Fidelity of the Nile is tomorrow. I wouldn't put it past them, locking you up in the cell and—"

"Your time is up, miss," the guard said loudly, and I was suddenly reminded that we were still in the horse stable with the guard and Bakura watching.

Isis stepped back and I instantly missed the smell of jasmine and fresh oil on her skin.

As she approached the door, she slipped something into the guard's pocket. Bribery had bought her a mere minute with me. I narrowed my eyes at the guard, who had eagerly driven his hand into his pocket to decide if the gold was enough.

Isis was at the door, about to leave, when she turned hesitantly.

"I won't cry for Osiris this year, Marik," she said quietly. Osiris, the dead husband for whom the goddess Isis cried every year, whose tears were the flooding Nile.

"I'll cry for you."


	4. Forsake Us, Maat

"Who was that? Your girlfriend?"

Bakura felt the need to dissolve my miserable mood, but he had a poor way of doing so.

"You asshole." I ran my hands through my hair as I slid down the hard wall until I was sitting against it. "That was my sister."

Bakura joined me, sitting down against the brick. "She looks nothing like you."

I snorted, but there was no way I was answering his unspoken questions. We'd agreed on secrecy. No background, no making friends.

The conversation with my sister had left me hollow. My skin was crawling as though something unpleasant was digging its way out, and I suddenly fully grasped my condition. Nose broken, wrists scraped, head ringing, stomach growling; defenseless and to be killed in a few days. Possibly tomorrow, if my sister was right. At the rate I was going, I'd be lucky to live until my execution.

I grabbed the dull knife from the ground and brought it to the brick wall. I was hardly aware of my actions, just the need to do anything but stay still.

"What are you doing?" Bakura asked, eyeing my terse movements.

I ignored him and dragged the blade across the wall, clutching the knife in a tight fist. The bronze broke through a thin layer of brick, scraping irritably, and I traced two curved shapes, which I joined to form a crude-looking arm.

Bakura looked on. "What is that?"

"Shut up," I growled, unable to stand his persistent voice, nor the feel of blood trickling over my mouth, nor the sound of the world tilting in its attempt to rid itself of me. I drew the round body of an owl next.

"You can write hieroglyphics?" Bakura sounded surprised, as though his image of me as a young, rebellious thief was shattered.

I pressed the blade deeper and smelled the powder of dried river mud and slashed across the brick to draw yet more shapes. The liquid dripped from my nose steadily, seeping into the ground, claiming my life as its own.

"What are you writing?"

It helped somehow; it always helped to write her name. I was coiled as tight as a cobra, bound like a precious scroll, but the last thing I wanted to do was admit I was afraid.

"Marik."

I flinched. The knife stayed fixed in my hand, caught before carving the last symbol. Somehow I'd forgotten that Bakura had been there to hear my sister. I was shocked to hear his voice wrapped so intimately around my name.

I finally turned to face him. His left cheek was bruised, a token of my fist and his inability to keep his mouth shut. He looked askance, harboring a million questions, all of them tumbling in his mouth but unsure which would be most appropriate. Which would justify his need to ask one at all.

"What did your sister tell you?"

Of course. He chose the question that would most benefit him. Perhaps he was hoping she'd revealed there was a trap door under the dirt or had slipped a proper knife into my belt. Fortunately, I was good at disappointing people.

"She told me we're going to die. Probably without a trial." There was no point keeping it to myself. As much as it pained me, I was hungry for collaboration; a reason to avoid the scrambling thoughts in my head. "She thinks the guards will try something, maybe tomorrow during the festival. That they'll kill us quietly to avoid a mess."

Bakura was quiet for a moment. If he was surprised, he didn't show it. Mostly likely, he'd reached a similar conclusion already.

"The Fidelity of the Nile," he scoffed. "As if there's anything to celebrate. The Nile is overflowing this year, isn't it?"

Knowledge about the river's patterns was only privy to the palace, and to its most important inhabitants at that. I knew, because my sister was a high priestess and gathered information about the Nile herself. Still, it was obvious. The river had spilled across the banks just last week, and it was only a matter of time until the outskirts of the village flooded.

"Yes," I replied. "If it's anything like a few years back, we have a lot to worry about."

The Nile had inundated its banks twice in my lifetime, and while the palace was largely unaffected, the villages had been ruined. The water broke apart the brick and went like a slithering snake into the streets, pulling apart the market stalls and washing out the buildings.

"They'll kill us while the entire city is at the temple celebrating. Why should anyone care if two thieves are killed? Hell, they'll just pretend it was an accident," Bakura said. I wondered at the neutral tone of his voice, as though he were merely making a prediction about the weather, not his own death.

"Isn't that against the law?" I was bitter. I should have known better, but I was still seeking justice. "Aren't we entitled to a trial before they punish us?"

Bakura laughed at me.

"You really are from the palace, aren't you?" He eyed me scornfully. "You think that criminals are treated to Maat's righteousness. As though these guards give a fuck if we're killed before or after our trial."

I huffed, expecting the words but still denying them. At the palace, my sister judged criminals using the Millennium necklace; fairness, while still a luxury there, was entirely absent here.

Regardless, I dodged the jibe because we had more important things to consider.

"So what do we do?" This was the second time I was asking Bakura to take control of the situation, and I hated myself for it. "How do we get out before we get killed?"

Bakura glanced around the room, taking stock. His lip curled upward.

"Our options could be better. That window is too small. The door is locked. The wall is strong." He knocked his fist against the brick to demonstrate. "We're as far removed from the world as we could be."

I stood up and began to pace. It was my own nervous habit, the equivalent of Bakura scraping his knife against the wall to cope with feeling trapped, caged like the horses that must have lived and breathed in this very room…

I grasped a train of thought and clung to it like a wanderer clings to an oasis.

"We must be close to the Nile," I said suddenly, and turned to face the wall with the window in it. It was a logical thought; a horse stable must be near the river to accommodate the horses. "The river is flooding. Then maybe—"

I scooped up the knife from the ground and dropped down beside the wall. It was crazy and most likely wouldn't work, but all the same worth a try. Bringing the knife to the dirt beside the wall, I started digging.

"What the hell are you doing?" Bakura sounded exasperated, as though the state of my sanity was the least of his worries.

The dirt was hard-packed but not entirely impenetrable. As I dug, the scent of putrefaction filled the air.

"The wall is solid, like you said," I stated. Then, pointing at the wall with the tip of the knife, I said, "But if the dirt is loosened, both under the wall, and between the bricks, the wall can deteriorate."

"Okay," Bakura said, eyeing the brick doubtfully. "I don't follow."

"Let me finish. If the wall can be loosened, and the Nile is flooding, and we're somewhere by the banks, the flood will smash through the wall when the river reaches us. And we're free."

Bakura frowned. "A lot of what you just said has an if attached to it. Ifthe Nile floods. If we're next to the river. If the wall can be knocked apart. What if we meet all those ifs and the flood just isn't strong enough to damage the wall?"

"Then the least we've done is tried something," I said stubbornly. "Besides, if we have enough time, we can break through the wall just using the knife."

Bakura was unconvinced. I could see the doubt in his grey eyes; in fact, the distrust. I realized suddenly that he wasn't used to advice. He was so solitary that the opinion of another person was unusual, and therefore unwelcome.

"I've read about the way they build these things," I tried, hoping my education would convince him. "The bricks have to be replaced constantly because the Nile floods. They're not even that strong to begin with—"

"What if the guard sees that we're making a hole through the wall?" Bakura interrupted, not hearing a word I'd said. "What if he kills us on the spot? What if the Nile doesn't even flood here for another two weeks? We could be dead by then—"

"Look, do you have a better idea?" I was done rationalizing. "If you do, I'd like to hear it."

Bakura crossed his arms, saying nothing. I turned back to the hole I was digging, and continued loosening the dirt. The thief be damned, I would prove him wrong. The knife almost slipped from my hand in anger.

The next two hours passed in silence. Bakura sat beside me, neither condoning nor condemning my work. He was definitely the type to stew. I imagined most of his childhood must have been spent contemplating revenge on some innocent kid who's stared at him wrong.

Not that I was any better. I used to keep track of all the fights I'd ever gotten into, carving a line for each one into the wall under my bedroom window. Each fight was a trip to my bedroom, where I was locked in with the promise of no dinner that night, and no breakfast the next morning without a sincere apology. Isis had always sniggered beside me whenever I apologized to father, knowing that each sugarcoated word was a flagrant lie.

I started scraping the mud between the bricks. I now had a sizable hole beneath the wall that allowed the burning, setting sun to peek into the room. As careful as a sculptor, I scoured the narrow lines between the bricks, digging the tip of the knife into the loosening mud.

The whole time, Bakura sat beside me in silence, throwing me poorly-hidden glances when he thought I was deeply concentrated on my work. He was also oddly fidgety.

Given those things, I wasn't surprised at all when after two hours, Bakura abruptly leaned toward me.

"You're not very quick about this," he said, as though my diligence offended him. He made to grab the knife from me.

I kept the knife fixed in my hand. "For starters, this is dried mud we're breaking here, so of course it won't be very quick. And secondly, I thought you weren't interested in my idea."

Bakura grabbed the hilt of the knife, so that his hand was partially covering mine. Despite myself, the simple touch exhilarated me.

"Well, if you're going to do anything at all, you should do it right," he returned. I got the feeling that he was only arguing for the sake of breaking the silence, curing his own restlessness.

"Really, you think you can do a better job," I deadpanned, pulling the knife toward me.

He pulled it back.

"Yes. You're wasting time with all this detailed work. Besides, it's my knife—"

I yanked the knife forward, but he wrenched it back with more force than I expected, and I only had a split second to see his eyes widen before I toppled over him.

"Oh, hell. You just don't know when to give up," I muttered.

The knife had fallen with a thud somewhere, but that was no longer my concern.

Bakura was lying half-raised on the ground and my legs were entangled between his in a mind-melting way. I had him pinned, both of my hands digging into the ground on either side of his torso. He was breathing shallowly, though I doubted it was from our trivial fight.

My face warmed. His entire body was raging hot, as if a fire was lit inside him, burning and licking his skin. His eyes were the color of river silt, dilated, almost black in the fading sunlight.

I ran my tongue along my bottom lip, feeling my throat go dry. He watched me, unblinking. Not a single muscle or sinew moved in his body, as though he was afraid to break the stillness.

I started to get up, trying to laugh this off.

"Alright, you can have the knife back, if you really want it—"

He rolled his hips, as if testing something, and I was lost in a wave of sensation.

"Shit," I dropped back against him. "What are you doing?"

His lips curved into a smirk. Then, bringing his hand to my tailbone, he shoved us closer together, letting me feel him stiffen. I bit my lip, trying hard not to moan.

"Returning the favor," he replied.

His eyes were dark and challenging. I could stand up right now and forget this had happened. Continue digging at the wall and ignore his insistent glances.

Or I could accept the challenge and thoroughly enjoy myself, reducing him to a begging mess. Of course, it wouldn't be about the sex—that would be a nice benefit—but about seeing who would lose control first. I'd had him earlier today; he would've let me fuck him if I had gone any further. Now he was guarded.

The thought that I should be worried about our escape nagged at me for a moment; but really, I'd made a lot of progress in two hours alone. And a diversion to finish something that we'd left hanging was so very tempting…

I made my decision.

In response, I ground my hips into his, my way of saying, I'm in. Bakura's smile widened and he launched, wasting no time.

His fingers were in my hair, tugging the strands and pulling me against his chest. Then, his mouth was around the sinewy flesh in my neck and I screwed my eyes shut, my breath hitching. He was doing ungodly things with his teeth, biting and sucking the skin, and I was trying my best not to scream. I clawed the dirt on either side of him, hoping to ground myself, dragging my fingernails over the earth to try and remember where I was.

"Give up yet?" Bakura asked hoarsely.

I smirked. At least we were in perfect understanding of what this was. A game.

In response, I pinned both his wrists against the ground and slid down, causing friction between our groins, before my mouth was level with his chest.

Briefly, I saw his eyes flash with lust, recognizing my intentions and regretting his own words.

I started slow. First, I ran the tip of my tongue just below his nipple, coaxing him. If it was possible, he grew harder. Then, I tentatively licked the dark flesh, careful and slow. He squirmed beneath me, trying to keep quiet but instead making soft huffing sounds. The air was thick and humid between us, suffocating.

Not wanting to drag it out too long, I started sucking on it softly. He groaned, unable to contain his excitement, and twitched against my stomach, probably without his own knowledge.

After another minute, I removed my mouth and gave him a self-satisfied smirk.

"No. You?"

He lay still for a moment, breathing like a man who'd just run across the dry, open desert. So far I was winning, and that had been far too easy. I wondered briefly how much experience he'd had, and concluded that it must not have been much.

Then his hands were on my thighs, and I started seriously doubting my conclusion. His rough fingertips traced the curve of my ass, sliding under my clothes, and then his hand was between my legs, touching me. My mouth fell ajar as I realized what he was doing. He handled my balls briefly, cupping the flesh, before grasping my dick and running his fingers up and down the smooth skin. Each stroke was a delicious current.

I bit my lip hard. Digging my fingernails into the soil, I was finding it hard to focus, trying to remember what I was trying to prove here.

"You cheated," I said huskily, trying to stop from shuddering despite the perspiration running down my body.

He chuckled, and I felt his breath just a few inches from my face. His strokes increased, sliding over my flesh with measured tempo. "Who said we were playing fair?"

Then he bit the crook of my neck again, running his tongue over the muscles, his fingers still wrapped tightly around my dick, and I lost it. I started moaning, breathing into his hair, and grabbing his arms as though to keep hold of the world, which was rapidly collapsing.

"Fuck," I groaned. I didn't want it to end, not yet.

Bakura was smiling into my neck, without doubt pleased with himself. I was drenched in desire, reduced to burying my face in his hair to muffle my noises, so it was with only half a brain that I did the next thing. I pressed my mouth against his ear, not trusting that my voice wouldn't just abandon me to moan again.

"Bakura," I whispered, not missing the way his tempo skipped a beat when I said his name.

"Let me fuck you."

He paused, his fingers still poised around me. And in the darkness, he turned to face me, his eyes masked and unreadable. The sweat was palpable between us. My shirt was sticking to my chest, and I tasted copper in my mouth, unsure if I had bitten my lips too hard or if my nose was still streaming.

Abruptly, Bakura released me and in a short move, flipped us over, throwing me against the ground to tower over me. The pale moonlight spilled from the window, highlighting his wild, white hair. I smelled raw power, as though a lightning bolt had struck the air between us.

"There's no way I'm letting you fuck me."

He drove my arms into the dirt and a shiver ran down my back. I'd forgotten for a moment whom I'd been toying with; Bakura was an unyielding criminal, and he could hurt me if he wanted to.

Unfortunately for me, that's what made the whole thing worthwhile.

And so in a moment of folly, I grabbed his hair by the roots and brought him toppling down to crash our mouths together.

He tasted salty, his lips cracked by the desert wind and an unrefined life. The kiss was short, because he was struggling against me and making no attempt to return it. I released his face after only a few moments.

"I'll make you a deal then," I breathed. "Let me fuck you and I'll tell you why I became a thief. I'll tell you everything and anything you'd ever want to know."

He rose to straddle me and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, his eyes glinting in the darkness. My proposal was hefty; I had never shared my entire life with anyone else, not even with Isis. I was bargaining a lot more than I was willing to give, but I wanted him. Never in my life had my carnal desires betrayed me like this.

"Okay," he said simply, and despite myself, my groin twitched with anticipation. "But on two conditions."

I stayed silent, wondering what sort of ridiculous limits he would set; knowing him, okay always came with a lot of buts.

"I'm not kissing you," he said, and the reason for his disgust from just a moment ago became evident. "That shit's only for friends and lovers. And we're neither."

I smiled. Not bad, I could deal with that. "And the second?"

It was his turn to smile.

"I'm fucking you afterward."

My cheeks burned and I immediately leaned up, about to strike him for suggesting that. My end of the bargain was a lot harder to uphold. But he grabbed my arm before I could throw the punch.

"And in return, I'll tell you what the diadankh does, and why I need it."

I stayed still, waiting for more. My whole life for a piece of his? I didn't think so.

"And?"

"And anything else you want to know," he said reluctantly.

My smile widened and I brought my hand to the navy fabric around his hips.

"Agreed."


	5. Learning from Min

I've never had sex before.

But it had always skirted me—both girls and boys who were interested in tasting danger and my illicit, untouched flesh. But I always recognized the meaning behind their glances for what it was.

Curiosity.

Nothing short of lightning-quick desire that would no doubt be replaced with guilt after having anything to do with me. So I had never bothered to indulge either them or myself.

But Bakura was different.

There was no tangled web of palace politics and hurtful preconceptions between us, and though the curiosity was still there, it went both ways. I was just as interested in what I anticipated would be hard and uncommitted sex. It was my chance to finally experience it without the entanglement of my whole life around me.

He was lying on the ground, facing me, wearing a scowl and nothing else.

"Are you going to get on with it, then?" he drawled. "I want to get this over with so I can have my turn."

I was on all fours on top of him, equally nude, trying to decide how to go about this. He was no longer as excited as before—I think his misgivings had killed it a little for him—but I was still distracted by his length as I examined the area below it.

"You're not even going to try to enjoy this, are you?" I asked. The moonlight was too faint to see anything, as the shadows had settled right between his legs.

"Not if you're going to be boring."

I met his eyes momentarily. His pupils were still black and dilated, but it was not only with lust.

Trepidation.

This is really happening, he was thinking, and I could see it plainly on his face. He was both attracted and repelled, both eager and apprehensive.

This had to be his first time, I realized. Not just the first time being fucked, but the first time fucking. He had no idea what to expect. I felt a rush to my stomach, and broke our gaze. Suddenly, I had a lot more responsibility than I'd anticipated.

"Flip over," I finally said.

Bakura looked outraged.

"What the hell? Just because I agreed to this doesn't mean you have to treat me like a dog—"

"It's for your own benefit, you asshole."

My patience was wearing thin, and not because he didn't obey me, but because I was just realizing how dumb I was for suggesting we do this.

"I can assure you, I'm not making fun of you."

He gave me the dirtiest look he could muster before sitting up and rolling over.

"Okay, good. But you're gonna have to kneel on the ground, not lay on it—"

"Fuck you."

He turned briefly to shoot daggers at me. I have to admit, his fierce gray eyes just turned me on more than reproached me.

I chuckled, sitting up to kneel at his backside. "You will, soon enough."

He did as I asked and sat on all fours, kneading his fingers into the soil and huffing, vulnerable and pissed. I appreciated the view of his smooth, toned back and the arc of his ass, just inches from me. Crisscrossing, fading scars marred his back, some older and some still on the threshold between wound and scar. His white hair was a bristly mess, the edges of which trailed over his neck and shoulders. My breath hitched at the realization that for a short while, this body would be mine.

"Just so you know," he said abruptly, "whatever you do to me, I'm doing to you. You can be as rough as you'd like, as long as you can take it the same way."

My throat went dry and I felt a rush of anxiety.

"Fair enough," I replied cautiously.

"And you really should hurry up. My ass is getting cold."

I burst out in laughter, and even to my own ears, I sounded almost hysterical. The entire situation was absurd; a mere twenty-four hours ago, I was still at the palace, waiting for nightfall and preparing to go out to steal the diadankh. And now I was kneeling beside a naked man, about to fuck him senseless, and I had no idea where to begin.

"Alright, if you're so eager," I said, and placed my hands on his hips, drawing closer.

He tensed immediately. I felt something wet beneath my right hand and when I brought my fingers to my face, I saw blood.

"Why are you bleeding?"

If it was possible, he grew tenser.

"That's—" he started. "That's where I kept the knife we've been using. I hid it under my clothes to keep the guard from finding it." As an afterthought, he added, "I didn't even realize I was bleeding."

I scoffed, but the idea that he'd been bleeding and enduring so much pain this whole time, including his dislocated arm and slashed torso, astounded me.

"It would've been more helpful if the knife was actually sharp."

"Well, you're using it for your little project, aren't you? So it's not entirely useless." His tone was curt, as though it was the conversation and not the knife that was unnecessary. "Anyway, will you quit dawdling and start already?"

"Fine."

And as I said that, I drew close enough to let him feel my dick graze his ass. The sensation of our flesh, so intimately together, made my blood rush down and I twitched against him inadvertently.

His breath quickened. I couldn't tell if it was from excitement or dread.

Using my right hand, I guided myself to where I imagined his asshole must be, though it was too dark to see anything clearly. Using my left thumb, I probed around, on the edge of the skin, and when I felt I must have found the right spot, I pushed the tip of my cock into it. I pressed hard and quickly because the last thing I wanted was another retort to hurry up.

Nothing happened.

I thought the flesh would give way and I would be in, but that wasn't the case. Instead, I was seemingly pushing against a brick wall. Grabbing his left thigh, I kept him still so he wouldn't budge, and pressed harder.

Bakura flinched, growing tenser.

I tried to maneuver myself, wondering if maybe I hadn't found the right spot after all, but nothing helped. No matter how I shifted myself, or how hard I tried to force myself to get in, I was only able to get the head to push through. And frankly, it hurt. The force was enough to make me bite my lip, as I reached the conclusion that Bakura must simply be impenetrable.

"What the hell are you using?" Bakura asked, his voice strained. "Your fist?"

"What?" I balked. "No, it's just me. Why would I be using my fist?"

"That's what it feels like," he muttered.

I was afraid that if I tried any harder, I would just break myself. Or that I would break him. I took a deep, frustrated breath, on the verge of giving up on this whole thing.

"You have no idea what you're doing, do you?" Bakura asked after a moment of silence.

"Shut up," I growled. And in response, I pushed again, hoping it would somehow work this time.

It didn't. All I got for my effort was a grunt on Bakura's part, who was probably tired of holding back his complaints.

"Figures," he continued. "You boss me around, make me kneel on the floor like some sort of animal, and then you can't even get your dick in my ass. I don't know if I still want to go through with our deal—"

"Shut up already!" My fingers clenched around his thigh, as I scraped my fingernails over his skin.

His hand immediately reached back to grab my arm, clasping it painfully, and his voice was low. "Watch it. If you put me through hell, you'll pay for it."

"Why are you acting like I'm trying to hurt you?" I asked. "I'm trying to make this as good for you as it is for me."

"Are you, really?" he asked bitingly. "Then I'll be lucky if I'm not bleeding by the end."

His bitter tone caught me off guard. He was so tense that his muscles were clenched all over his body, like smooth, coiled snakes. The more I forced, the tenser he got. And the tenser he was, the harder it was to get in. We had both effectively created a vicious circle, and were looping around it fruitlessly. To break the cycle, we'd have to switch tactics.

"Alright, look," I finally said, dropping back. "This isn't working, and I'm not the only one screwing things up. If we're really gonna do this, we have to do things differently."

Ha glanced back at me menacingly.

"How could I be doing anything wrong? You're the one in control."

"Look at you," I grasped his thigh and he nearly jumped out of his skin. "You're so tense that even if I wanted to screw you, I couldn't do it. You need to relax."

"How can I relax when I know I'm about to be fucked?" he asked, and suddenly, the situation was perfectly clear to me.

He couldn't relax. Not of his own accord, anyway. He was utterly paralyzed, approaching the whole thing with the mindset of Let's just get this over with.

Well, that was not going to work. In fact, it made my job next to impossible, and wouldn't be enjoyable for either of us. Hell, it was far from enjoyable right now.

"Well, I can't get anywhere until you calm down. As it stands, you're completely shutting me out and making it painful for the both of us. So you choose. Are you going to enjoy this or not?"

He took a deep breath. I kept my hands loosely on his thighs, hoping the touch would be arousing without being unwanted. Then, cautiously, I rubbed his skin with my thumb, sweeping my fingers back and forth in a lazy, almost subconscious manner. His breathing sped up, but this time I could tell it was with arousal and not anxiety.

Alright, this could work. As long as I kept him distracted, he wouldn't think about the circumstances. It dawned on me that he was as mentally tense as he was physically. He brooded, he thought, he considered his every move with cautious footsteps, like a feline prowling around its prey. The brief instant he lost control was a rare one, and right now he was reeling in his emotions and grasping the situation with tight, white-knuckled hands. This astounded me. His controlled approach was as different from mine as the Nile was from the desert.

His body was still hot under my fingertips and I grew more confident that this tactic would work. What I needed was a real distraction, something tangible and audacious. Letting my fingers draw toward his inner thigh, I grasped his hip with one hand and curled my fingers around his cock with the other.

He made a noise between a sigh and a moan, and my blood rushed at hearing it. Despite my instincts to hurry things up, I took this slow. Rushing it, as we'd found out, only got us frustrated and absolutely nowhere.

Setting a very slow pace, I decided to experiment. He was impenetrable because he was tense, but also because I was trying to shove something up his ass without preparation. It would probably help to start small and work my way up.

Getting an idea, I brought my unoccupied hand to my mouth and spit into it.

"What are you doing?" Bakura asked, tensing again.

My hand jerked around him in irritation.

"I'm going to try something. Just trust me."

Water would have helped right about now, but I had drunk it all, so the spit would have to do. After making sure my hand was sufficiently disgusting, I brought it to his ass and felt my way around. It was completely dark outside now, so I was probing blindly. After finding the puckered skin, I pushed my index finger inside.

He breathed in sharply. I felt his thigh muscles clench and to keep him distracted, I maintained a steady rhythm on his cock. He seemed to appreciate the gesture, because he was relaxing again, even as I forced my finger deeper. The sensation around my finger was strange, as though the walls were clenching around it, warm and elastic. I shuddered, wondering how it would feel when I had my dick in there.

"This feels weird," Bakura said, and I laughed suddenly, agreeing. "But not as bad as I thought it would be."

"Well, it's only one finger, so I'd hope so," I replied.

Bakura paused.

"Wait, so that's still not you, then?"

I laughed again.

"Gods, no! You think I'm that small?"

He didn't reply, as though it had just dawned on him that the worst still hadn't passed.

"Relax. I'm taking this one step at a time," I said, keeping a tight grip on him. "Don't start complaining, because I'm being as patient as I can be."

He kept his mouth shut, but I heard the sound of his fingers grasping the soil under his hands.

After I found that my one finger could only go so far, I slid my middle finger inside, still coated with saliva. He took the intrusion in stride, shifting his hips slightly, his legs grazing along my own. The walls stretched to accommodate the addition, and I was both glad that this was working and anxious to finally get in.

Two was sufficient. He was comfortable enough that he no longer tensed when I drove my fingers deep and massaged him from the inside. So, deciding that he was finally loose and that I couldn't stand another moment of hearing his huffing sounds without being able to feel him, I glided my fingers out.

He sensed my rush. "Are you starting then?"

"You were so eager before," I teased. "Now you just sound nervous."

"I'm not," he growled. "Get on with it."

I smirked, but before starting, I spit into my hand again, and coated myself in saliva to make it easier on him. Then, I shifted to kneel closer against him, wasting no time in bridging the gap between us and pressing the tip inside.

It slid in, still meeting resistance, but slipping slowly and surely as the muscles clenched of their own accord. I went as far as I could go, as Bakura shuddered and shifted the entire time. There was pressure all around my dick, tightening and gripping me as though trying to suck me in deeper.

Bakura grunted, clearly not as excited as I was, and I had to pause to gather my breath. The feeling was masochistic, almost. Warm and clenching all around me, he was so tight that I was breathless.

"Are you okay?" I asked, gripping his thighs with both my hands to steady myself.

"Fine," he muttered. "You don't need to act like I can't handle this. Just keep going."

I started moving. Keeping my fingers pressed against his skin, I backed out and then backed in. Something thrilling and gripping shot through my stomach, and I bit my lip to keep from moaning. Our bodies were hot and clammy, and as I increased my rhythm, I felt sweat bead on my forehead. The night air was cool, drifting through the little window at the top of the wall.

Bakura's breath hitched, and I knew he had to be enjoying this. Each thrust was still awkward—he budged uncomfortably, kicking my legs each time I buried myself in there, breathing unevenly and trembling slightly with the effort of kneeling for so long—but he still relished the feeling.

I started going hard, driving fast and deep, knocking our flesh together, and losing myself in the feeling of his muscles still clenched around me. He huffed with each strike, and I tried to hold on so it wouldn't end too soon.

The moonlight fell on his white hair, illuminating his shuddering back and shoulders. My mouth was ajar, panting, lost in sensation and the suffocating air around us. Something compelled me to make this better, somehow, at least better for him.

My fingers edged toward his inner thigh again, and I clasped him, drawing a sigh from his lips.

"You don't—" he breathed. "—have to."

I smirked, awkwardly pumping at his dick and still thrusting into him. "I know. But I'm hoping you'll do the same for me."

He lost it then. He'd been hard before, but he was fully erect now, and each thrust now had him grunting and moaning, clawing the dirt under his fingers, and trembling from the force on his knees. His reaction made me go faster, and there was almost no time between the sounds of our skin slapping together.

He came quickly, bursting over my fingers and shivering as the shock of my thrusts pulled him over the edge. I waited for it to stop, as it all spilled over my hand and on the ground, before I brought my fingers back to his thigh and finally, tired of feeling reigned in, I let myself lose control.

My hands grasped his hips with raw force, my fingers slipping in blood on one thigh and come in the other. I went so hard at him that my vision started to cave, blinding me as I screwed my eyes shut and lost myself to the tightening of his warm muscles. My nails carved down his thighs, no doubt slicing the cut on his right hip even wider, and finally I came, trembling and panting, feeling as though the entire world was collapsing around me.

A single drop of sweat ran down my back as the aftershock settled in. My fingers went slack against his skin, as I gathered my breath, still pulsating inside him.

Bakura said nothing, though I'd fully expected him to go off about me coming inside him. I pulled out slowly, feeling slippery and satiated. The moment I was completely out, Bakura's entire body seemed to give way, as he collapsed to the ground. He rolled over to face me, his eyes still dark, his hair damp and sticking to his forehead.

I was in the same state, tired and breathless, my knees worn-out and trembling. So, placing my hands on either side of him, I lowered myself against his warm body, tangling our legs together and lying against his chest. He did nothing to prevent this, surprising me again.

"Well?" I asked quietly, my breath still uneven. Our groins were still touching, gratified and slick.

"What?" he asked, his voice husky. "Do you expect a congratulations or something? The evidence of your performance is right here."

I smiled. I think that's the closest I'd get to I liked it.

He smelled musky and stifling, our flesh pressed together, sticky and warm. The frays of his mussed hair tickled my cheeks as I brought my face toward his. His full lips were still parted, and he was looking toward the window, into the moonlight, his breathing becoming even.

I wanted to kiss him right then. The desire was obnoxious and overwhelming, and completely wrong. I'd gotten what I'd wanted, so where had this come from?

I gripped his shoulder tightly and pressed my face into his neck, forcing my mouth as far from his as I could.

"I'm sorry to assume, but I don't think you're up for your turn just yet," I said, my voice muffled by his throat.

He chuckled and the sound rumbled against my body. "I don't think so, either."

The night was dark and calm suddenly, cooling my warm skin and making our silence intimate. I was tired but not sleepy, and I think he was the same. His heart beat right against mine, still racing.

"Why don't I start, then?" I asked, grasping for something to say. "My part of the deal. Ask me whatever you want."

He shifted to face me, and his hair prickled my bare neck.

"I don't have any questions," he replied. "But you did promise you'd tell me how you became a thief."

"Okay." I wet my lips, thinking of all the events, all the misery and emotion that had gotten me here, lying against a thief in the aftermath of a fuck and about to reveal everything about me. "I'll warn you though; I don't think you're going to feel any more excited by the end of it."

Bakura laughed. "I don't think you need to worry about me getting hard."

I let my gaze drift toward the moonlit window and opened my mouth, preparing to be stripped in a far more significant way than I had been already.


	6. Thoth Tells a Story

At the age of six, I found out what I was.

A bastard.

It was nothing short of the second biggest discovery of my life, and in retrospect, it should have been obvious.

I was, after all, born with a shock of blond hair. (Nobody in my family had blond hair.) My skin was fairer than that of most Egyptians and my eyes were bright and clear, not the color of river silt and a dark horizon.

My appearance was foreign and unwelcome to the palace children. They sneered and glared and threw sand at me. They wouldn't play with me and yet they wouldn't leave me alone. So finally, at six, I asked my mother what it was all about.

She explained it to me gently, not believing in beautiful lies that might have prevented my harrowing childhood.

"It means that your sister and you," she'd smiled at me, holding my two hands, as though afraid I would run off, "are not related by blood."

"What do you mean?" I huffed. "You may only be my mother, but father belongs to both Isis and me. So we're still half-related by blood."

She shook her head. "Father is not your father, Marik."

"Then who is my father?" I couldn't understand.

"I don't—nobody knows," she said uncertainly. "Nobody here has the same hair, or eyes, or skin color that you do."

"What is it with my looks that has everyone going off?" I burst out. "I don't get it. Maybe the gods wanted it that way. Maybe I was just born looking strange. What difference does it make?"

She looked at me sadly, biting her lip as though biting back her words. And then she enveloped me in her arms and I smelled oil and jasmine on her skin. She started laughing. It was a strange, strangled laugh, as though she could see my whole future and didn't know whether to cry or find humor in it.

"I know. It makes no difference to me at all."

She taught me how to write. The intelligent and raven-haired daughter of a scribe, she taught me with painstaking patience how to ink hieroglyphs.

As we wrote together, we talked. She explained how both she and I fit into the world the same way Thoth might paint a story.

She was born in Egypt, but her father's travels brought her to lands beyond the sea. She was young and beautiful and there the men were blond and bright-eyed as they turned their gazes on her. She had never been a plain woman in her lifetime, not in her aspirations nor in her looks. She lived somewhere beyond that realm of common thought, and it always stole my breath to watch the languid ink strokes and hear the quiet reflections.

She married an Egyptian nobleman without knowing what she'd brought back from beyond the sea. Not even the bright-eyed man with his gaze on her ever knew. No one knew.

Of course, when I was born looking as mystical as her wildest dreams, everyone knew.

And by then, it was too late to stop the name-calling. It was too late to stop the vicious looks that father threw at my mother. It was too late to stop the gritting sand between my teeth whenever my head was slammed into the river silt, merely for asking, Can I play here?

And it was far too late for what happened next.

At the age of eight, I found out that death made no warning.

My father returned from a bartering trip with his men and a slew of new horses. He glanced at my questioning expression once before uttering: "She's in the arms of Anubis now."

For a split second, I saw myself break into two people. One was Marik, the bastard scribe of a noble family, who grew up to become a wealthy man and lived as all men do when they lose their mother. That is, he moved on. He lived on.

And then there was me, the eight-year-old boy who had just lost the only thing that made sense in the world. The only shield between the ignorance and himself, and who at that instant crumbled.

Isis was with me, and she drew forward to ask for an explanation.

"A pack of wild dogs, miss," one of the soldiers told her, as father withdrew. "In the mountains. They carried off a few of our men—"

He stopped abruptly, because Isis looked sickened, and the guards were moving quickly to unload the horses and bring in the riches, so there was no time to be patient or understanding. Father had turned to stride toward the palace, without even looking back. Leaving us in a sea of guards and horses loaded with gold, and letting me face my wretched future alone.

Isis wrapped her arms around me, shushing me with, "Quiet, brother. Quiet."

I didn't realize I was crying until my shoulders started shaking, and my chest was tight and clenched, like Sobek's locked jaws. The sobs wracked my body for a long time.

I cried for weeks. I cried when my mother's things were removed from her bedroom. I cried when I picked up the brush to write on the papyrus, and when there was no hand to steady my shaking arm. I cried when I realized she had no body, no vessel for Anubis, and the only things she took to the afterlife were her blood and tattered linen. I cried when I awoke; I cried when I slept.

And then, abruptly, I stopped crying and never cried again.

To my shame, I abandoned all that my mother had believed in. But the hieroglyphs were painful. Each brushstroke was her whisper, and I was sick of hearing it. The palace was stifling. I hated the confined and wealth-driven hellhole, so the bustling market became my solace. I lost myself in the crowd and the busy streets.

I stole. Not for need but for want. No one knew, and no one cared, I told myself.

But Isis did.

"What's the meaning of this?" she once asked, holding a petty, golden trinket she'd found in my room. "I know it's stolen, because you'd never wear something so cheap. And I've heard talk around the palace that you've been swiping things from the market."

I was ten, and in two years I had grown so impudent, that Isis was not even surprised when I snatched the bracelet from her and said:

"Leave my shit alone! What's it to you anyway, if I steal something worthless?"

"You'll make father angry," she said. Though that was clearly not the only reason.

I laughed.

"No, I'll make your father angry, which I couldn't care less about."

Isis bristled, and her eyes grew cold.

"You'll get yourself in trouble, and whether he's your father or not, he'll punish you."

"I wanna see him try," I challenged.

Isis pursed her lips, and then attacked more subtly.

"Your mother would be ashamed if she could see you. This is the last thing she expected from you."

I said nothing, turning from her.

"If this is what you want, then fine," she continued. "But you're not honoring anyone with what you're doing. You're trampling on everything she ever stood for. Spitting on her very tomb."

I turned abruptly, livid.

"Well, that's a little off then, isn't it?" I snarled. "Considering she never had one."

It didn't take long for the palace children to realize I was no longer related to a single member of my family. The few friends I'd had before were now vicious.

"Marik Ishtar?" they said. "You look nothing like the Ishtars. Are you a servant, then? They must've taken you in out of pity."

I felt as useless as a lost key, fitting nowhere and belonging to no one. Father merely cast me aside, the quiet, looming shadow that he was. I had anger and time on my hands, so I used both to fashion myself a new personality. A new outlook on life. It was cathartic in the most miserable way possible.

First, I started talking back.

"Did your mother cheat on your father or something?" they'd say. "How come you don't look anything like—"

And I'd reply, "If you say another word about the way I look, I'm going to rip your intestines out of your ass, and shove them back into your mouth."

Then I started fighting back.

They pulled my hair, so I broke their jaws. They bruised my face, so I snapped their wrists.

By the time I was twelve, my nose would never be straight again, and I had broken more arms than I could count on my two hands.

Of course, I got hell for it at home.

Father hit me hard across the face one day, after I punched the son of a high-ranking palace official, who had been gloating that his father's money would be his one day, but that I'd be lucky to see a single piece of gold from my own. My father yanked me by the hair into my room, with his fingers tangled and pulling the strands until my eyes watered.

"How dare you?" he thundered, and that's when the hard slap came. "You worthless piece of shit. Do you understand what I'm compromising here? That boy's father is in a higher position than me. To him, I might as well have been the one who hit his son."

I placed a hand against my cheek, feeling it sting and go numb.

"You would've done the same thing if you heard him."

"I don't care what he said to you." His eyes were so black that I wondered briefly if there was anything beyond them. "Don't ever raise a hand at your superiors. They're the ones who decide the course of your life in the palace."

"Really? So if, say, he was questioning if you were really my father, what should I do? Hang my head and nod, and let him walk all over me and slander our family name? Is that what you want me to do?"

His grip on my arm tightened. I found the crazed, beady gaze of a vulture staring down at me.

"Are you questioning our family ties?" His voice was low and quiet.

"I wasn't the one questioning them—"

He slammed his fist across my face, and this time, I felt my nose break.

"If you fight back, then you are questioning them. You're letting them think that it's true." He looked positively mad, in all senses of the word. Angry and crazy and pissed and insane. "And I will never let them believe that."

He turned from me, making for the door.

"Clean yourself up. I don't want to see your face before tomorrow."

Until then, I had hardly known my father, but now I understood him. He was a powerful, powerful man. And he was also a coward. The opinion of others was so entrenched in him that it ruled him. He hurt me because he would never hurt them. He was more of a child than I was, unable to recognize when the world was out of his control.

I continued to steal after that. The greatest relief was that no one knew me in the markets, and I wore peasants' clothes to blend in all the better. I knew my connection to the palace would be short lived. I couldn't stay there, shoved in a corner of the world that clearly didn't want me. I fantasized about the open desert, but I wasn't unrealistic enough to believe that I could make a clean break at thirteen. I needed transition, and the thievery was my training.

I still felt a pang every time I stole because I thought of Isis. I saw her less and less now that she had her priestess duties, but she was still the only person I could trust. She was the only thing that made the palace life bearable, but with her prolonged absences, even that connection was breaking. She was chained to the palace. Seeking and judging criminals, clearing her mind and widening her gaze—it was as breathtaking to her as my longing for the desert and the wide expanse of Egypt, my desire to knock down the brick walls and recreate my fate.

So I became more audacious. I stole maps of the Kingdom from sacred archives, and burned them into my mind, preparing for the day when there would be nothing but desert in my four directions.

At fourteen, I made the biggest discovery of my life.

I set fire to an entire row of sacred documents in the archives by accident. While holding a candle to the papyrus, it slipped and the fire swallowed up rolls and rolls of precious paper.

It was complete hell.

The scribes were in an uproar, the household was ashamed, Isis was livid, and father was unusually quiet as he shoved me into my room and locked the door.

He tried to compose himself. He was shaking, which meant I had really done it this time. I swallowed thickly and felt tendrils of panic and cold perspiration under my shirt, anticipating the worst.

He hit me once, not saying a single word. I took it unflinchingly, and felt my head pound.

"What are you trying to prove?" he asked. He was tall and thick, like a long, wound snake. I always called him my father, but only with the quiet reminder that he wasn't. He was an angrier man than any father had a right to be. He wasn't my parent. Not even a father figure. Merely a man who believed it was alright to keep his fingers tightly clenched around my throat.

"I'm not trying to prove anything," I replied, keeping my gaze firmly locked on his. "I never was."

"Bullshit." His lip curled up. "Everything you ever do stands against my name. You never have a speck of appreciation for anything I do for you."

I smiled humorlessly.

"Is that what you call it? Hitting me, and locking me up, and calling me a worthless shit every time we talk is appreciable? I'm sorry, but that message didn't come across very clearly—"

He raised his hand again, but I was quicker. I grabbed his arm before it could bear down. It was the first time in my life I had tried to stop him, and that realization made fear crawl down my back.

Throwing off my hand violently, he approached me with narrowing eyes. My heart beat wildly but I stood perfectly still, waiting for what I expected would be the worst punishment of my life.

"You still don't realize, do you?" he asked, and his nose wrinkled as though he smelled something disgusting. "I've been merciful to you this whole time. I've kept you in the palace, clothed, sheltered, and fed. Treated you as if you were actually my son."

He had never before acknowledged our connection. Or rather, the lack of it.

Suddenly, he laughed.

"Now I see that was a mistake. My daughter was a fool when she said there was still something worthy in you. My daughter, who made only one mistake in her entire life, and you, who's made all the rest."

I tried to find my voice, feeling my throat go dry.

"What mistake?"

He looked at me long and hard.

"You will carry my name. But she won't."

So that was it. Legacy. Pride. The pitiful opinion of others. That was all that drove him, and clearly, he disregarded his own daughter merely because he wanted a son to carry his fortune and name.

"You asshole," I said slowly. "How can you blame her for something out of her control?" I was reminded that he'd done the same thing with my mother. My mother, who had no idea that she was carrying a foreigner's child and that my blood wouldn't belong to the prideful monster she had chosen for a husband.

"You're sickening," I told him.

"Oh, am I?" he snapped. "After what you've just done in the archives, you have no room to talk."

"That was an accident, I wasn't—"

"You liar," he thundered, and then he approached me again, causing me to back up. "Nothing about you is an accident."

All too soon, I found the cold brick wall behind me.

"Every time you fuck something up, I'm the one explaining to the palace. I'm the one they blame, asking why I can't even keep my bastard son in check."

My blood was boiling too now.

"Do you think I enjoy this? Do you actually think I want them to insult me, and spit on me, and hit me because I'm different and there's not a thing I can do about it? Gods, you're stuck so far up your own ass that you can't even see anything else—"

I felt a violent smash across my face, and the back of my head hit the wall behind me. For a second, I was too dumbstruck to move, and then I felt him grasp my hair and yank so hard that part of it ripped clean out of my head. I screamed, though through the overwhelming pain, I was unaware that my mouth had even opened.

"You jackass," my father said, his voice low. "You're lucky that you're even alive. If you hadn't been born a man, I would have sliced your neck and thrown you to the dogs long ago."

I felt faint. My scalp prickled as his words took root. I felt horror wrap itself around my intestines and chill me. If I was born a…

His grasp on my hair tightened and I whimpered, afraid he would pull it all out. I felt something wet drip down my neck.

"I've given you so much more than you deserve, but you keep testing my patience."

Tears prickled my eyes as his hand clenched around the roots.

"I wonder," he tilted his head, and a curious glint was in his eye as he said, "what your mother would think if she saw you now. Would she feel betrayed? Ashamed? Would she regret bringing you into this world?"

I had nothing to say to that, because I'd wondered the same thing before.

"Probably not," he said suddenly. "She was incredibly attached, you know. She loved you more than I believe she ever loved me, and that was, in the end, her biggest mistake."

My heart stopped beating momentarily.

"What the hell are you on about?" I breathed.

"I wanted to kill you," he revealed nonchalantly, as if that was a thought that might occur to anyone. "And I would have, but I was never sure of whom I hated more. Fortunately, your whore of a mother made the decision easy for me."

My mouth had gone dry and my face was completely still, made of stone.

"What did you do?"

He saw my expression.

"Oh, the story is still no different than you know it, Marik. In the end, it was still a pack of wild dogs."

I couldn't move. The pain in my scalp was utterly nothing, not even registered. I was imprisoned in the moment and the realization.

My father laughed at me, then abruptly released my hair. He stood up, straightened himself up, and gave me a cold smile.

"You know your punishment, then. No dinner tonight, and don't leave the room until tomorrow."

With that, he left, and unable to keep myself upright, I collapsed to the floor.

The images came unbidden. One after another, until the entire scene engulfed me and made me choke on the bile that rose to my throat, and I kneeled on the ground to throw out the contents of my stomach.

Oh, gods. The gods who had allowed it, the gods who had watched as the dogs descended.

I could hear his laughter. What had he done—tied her up? Or left her in a cavern with the scrambling beasts? Or—there were too many scenes, all of them slicing and widening my mind, as though prying me open to fill me with only the sickening darkness.

I could hear the howls and the shrieks. Feel the hot blood spatter on the ground and on their fur, and her flesh settle between their teeth. And all along, the crazed laughter continued, the act of utter insanity as he watched.

Fuck. I couldn't think anymore.

I couldn't think.

"And what after that?"

I crashed back to the present. Bakura was staring at me, and I suddenly realized that I'd finished speaking.

"After that—" I started, trying to remember. I felt a headache coming on. I hated recalling that instant in my life, realizing what my father had done, but it felt like that's what my entire childhood had led up to. That realization.

"I tried to kill him."

Bakura stared at me in the darkness, and I wondered how long we'd been there, talking. "And?"

"I couldn't do it," I admitted quietly. "I couldn't kill that man."

We fell silent for a moment, and I took the time to absorb the real world again. I found myself surprisingly light, weightless almost. I took a deep breath and smelled the night air. The fresh air was faint, barely leaking in through the high window, and mostly obscured by the smell of urine in the cell, but the clean scent was still there.

"That still doesn't explain why you decided to steal the diadankh," Bakura said.

"The choice was inconsequential, really," I said tiredly. "I just needed to steal something big. Something really expensive and valuable, and I heard about the pure gold hidden in the temple shrine. It was supposed to be my first step into the world. My complete break from the palace." And then, sarcastically, I added, "How pathetic that it ended here."

"So you were running away yesterday," Bakura said. "You weren't going back to the palace after that."

I nodded imperceptibly.

"So that's that," I said, trying to sound jovial, but I still found it hard to return to the present after all that. I couldn't believe how much I'd just revealed to Bakura. I had never told a single soul before now. "Are you going to tell me your story, then?"

In the faint light, I saw Bakura smile.

"I don't want to think of any more depressing things. For a little while, anyway." As he said so, his hand came up to my thigh.

He wasn't the only one who needed a distraction.

I turned to face him in the darkness. Our clothes were still scattered somewhere that I couldn't care less about remembering right then. Bakura leaned across me, carefully winding his fingers through my hair as he brought us close.

I smiled shakily and accepted the diversion.


	7. Avenge Me, Sekhmet

Bakura was easy on me.

He took his time making sure I was properly stretched, running his hands over my skin as though he couldn't get enough of the feeling. I didn't know if he was actually concerned about making me feel good, or if my story had driven him to be gentler.

Still, when he filled me, it was uncomfortable. I grabbed the soil under my hands, kneeling on the ground, and shifted anxiously, knocking my legs into his a few times. He gasped the moment he was in entirely, and despite the stinging and utter vulnerability, I shivered at hearing him.

He lost control much faster I had. He started moving slowly at first, but after a few thrusts, that wasn't enough, and soon he was pounding and slamming and tearing his nails into my hips. I was breathless and hardly able to keep up with the sensations, but I didn't have long to dwell on them because soon enough he came, and was already pulling out.

His breath was still short as he backed up, letting me sit up. His hair was plastered messily over his face as I turned to look at him.

"Well?" he asked, posing the same question I had posed to him, and I had to smile quietly because he sounded self-conscious.

"Well, the evidence of your performance is nowhere to be seen." I took advantage of the rare moment that he was bashful. "So you still have some work to do."

I heard him hesitate for a moment, sitting still in the darkness, and I had to swallow back my laughter. It was as if he was actually worried he had failed somehow. This was far from the case, because despite not coming, I had thoroughly enjoyed myself. And though I would never say so, I found this hesitancy endearing.

But the moment of self-doubt passed, because he then growled and grabbed me roughly to pump up and down my length.

My breath grew rapid, in sync with the shuffling sound of his hand on my skin. He was still kneeling behind me, with one hand curled around my waist, between my thighs, and the other holding my hip.

This felt different, somehow. For one thing, it was quiet, accentuating the little noises coming out of my mouth and the sound of his shallow breath. His strokes slowed, growing languorous and careful, and if it wasn't Bakura delivering them—I would have said gentle.

Was this what lovers felt?

Something besides the sharp and quick pleasure. Something more fervent and warm and compressing.

His mouth was on my shoulder suddenly, and carefully, he drew his teeth along my neck. Capturing the tendons with his mouth, his tongue reached out against my skin, wet and warm.

My whole body shuddered.

The sex was one thing—it was fast and purposeful and clenching—but this softness was something else entirely. For a moment, as his fingers pressed and kneaded my skin and his hair tickled my neck and his breath was hot in my ear, I wondered if I liked this better. Better than the abrupt sex and better than the sharpness.

If I did, then I was in trouble.

Because this wasn't a real side of Bakura, I suspected. He'd created it for the sole purpose of calming and composing me after I'd revealed my life to him. But it would only last until that purpose was fulfilled, and then it would vanish, swallowed up by the night.

I came without hurry, with the sensation of his tongue on my exposed neck, and his fingers pulling me over the edge. He continued the strokes until it had all spilled, and then he did something I didn't quite understand or expect.

He pressed a kiss against my neck.

It was quick and unplanned, I'm sure, because he then backed away instantly, as though pretending it hadn't happened. I smiled as I stood up shakily, and let the action slide without comment.

I was tired. It was dark and it was late and I just wanted the thoughts in my mind to stop whirling like tumultuous waves.

After sitting against the brick wall, it wasn't long before I was asleep.

I awoke with a start, and realized it was still the dead of night.

I was normally a very sound sleeper, so I wasn't sure what had awoken me so suddenly after only a few hours of sleep. The moonlight had shifted and now illuminated the door. As I glanced over, I noticed Bakura sitting against the wall, entirely dressed again, and holding something in his hands. He flipped the object over casually, as though lost in thought, and it glinted in the darkness. His knife, I realized.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" I asked, and yawned as I stood up, feeling my back pop from sleeping against the hard wall.

Bakura didn't reply as I approached him. Somewhere in the distance, I heard a faint sound, almost like falling rain, but much quieter.

"We need to be on our guard tomorrow," I said, hoping to entice him into a conversation. I was feeling wide awake, though I guessed it must have been about two in the morning. "We need to be prepared for what my sister warned us about."

"Well, that's what I'm doing. Being on my guard," Bakura scoffed.

I dropped down beside him.

"I meant you need your sleep, so you can be alert tomorrow."

"I'm always alert," he muttered, sounding very grudging. He must have been up the entire time I was asleep, and it looked like he'd been very deep in thought.

I yawned again, letting my head rest on the brick.

"What are you so wrapped up in, anyway? You're acting really sulky."

"Leave me the hell alone," Bakura said, sounding partly waspish and partly tired. His face was hidden in shadows, so I couldn't read it. But he was moving the knife in his hands more edgily, so he was clearly tense.

"Something's obviously bothering you," I remarked.

"Why do you care?"

I huffed. "Well, I know that we're not best friends just because we've fucked, but you could at least be more open with me."

Bakura was silent, and I found myself curious. Something was eating him up, and I knew my presence right then was unwanted. But I couldn't sleep after waking up so suddenly, and I found that I actually wanted a conversation at that moment. So I promptly thought of something.

"You know, you haven't done your end of the deal yet," I said. "I want my payment for letting you fuck me, so you can start now. Tell me about the diadankh."

Bakura growled, clearly not in the mood to talk. But I couldn't stand him sitting there and thinking so deeply that he couldn't sleep.

"You're such a brat," he muttered in what sounded like a statement of resignation.

"Go on, then," I prompted, folding my arms. "What's the great, big secret about it anyway?"

Bakura sighed, realizing that I would just be irritating until he stopped being so moody. He placed the knife down, and stretched his legs out, as though getting comfortable for a long story.

"Alright, I'll tell you, since you want to know so badly." He paused for a moment, and then continued more seriously, "The diadankh is a weapon, like I said before. And it lets the wielder use their ka to battle."

I frowned, not entirely understanding. "But you said that the diadankh was stronger than an army. One's ka is strong, but not that strong."

"Well, it's not guaranteed to be as strong as an army; it just has the potential to be. Imagine two kas—one in the form of a lizard, and one in the form of a demigod. Clearly, one has an advantage over the other."

"So, the stronger the ka, the stronger the weapon," I concluded. This was certainly interesting, but highly arbitrary. One didn't, after all, choose one's ka. "How does it work, exactly?"

"I'm not completely sure," Bakura said, sounding embarrassed to admit that. "But you can draw your ka out using the diadankh, and use it to fight directly. Some of the Pharaoh's closest people have diadankhs that they use to capture and punish criminals—I'm surprised you've never run across it before."

It was my turn to sound embarrassed. "Frankly, I haven't even stepped foot in the palace court in years. I was always more worried about getting out of there."

"Right," Bakura said, remembering my story. "Well, anyway, that's the general idea behind the diadankh. It's very powerful, but only if you have a powerful ka."

"So how do you know that yours is powerful?" I teased. "For all you know, getting the diadankh might not do you any good."

But Bakura didn't find any humor in my words. Instead, he tensed. "Trust me, I know."

I glanced at him skeptically, though I couldn't see very well in the darkness. I could tell that he was closing up again, retreating back into his thoughts and walling himself in again. Well, that wasn't a good enough response for me.

"There's one more thing I still have to ask then," I started. "When you said that a thief might need something stronger than an army to protect himself—something like a strong ka and a strong weapon like the diadankh—what was it that he'd have to protect himself against? Why would he need it?"

Bakura was silent. Just like the last time I'd asked this question, I hit a wall. An impenetrable brick that, as much as I knocked and knocked at it, wouldn't budge.

"Bakura," I said, and I knew my use of his name was powerful, because he always tensed when I said it. "You promised to tell me everything. I didn't pick and choose things to hide from you when I told you my story. So you can't back out now—"

"Alright," Bakura snapped. "I get it. I'll tell you."

I waited. I knew this was monumental by the way that he paused as though to gather his thoughts.

"I need the diadankh because there's someone in this life who's wronged me," he said slowly. "Someone who, years and years ago, took everything from me."

I listened quietly, surprised at the raw emotion so suddenly in his words.

"I've sworn to the gods that I would kill this man," he stated plainly, as though trying to remain neutral. "I would slaughter him and tear apart each part of his body and rip out his heart for what he did. I—I've sworn to myself that this would be the only thing I'd live for. To see this man dead."

The sound of his voice was heart-breaking, so angry and brutal that it reminded me of my own.

"Who is he?" I asked quietly.

Bakura hesitated for only a moment, before he swallowed thickly, against his own reluctance.

"The Pharaoh."

To say that I wasn't reeling after hearing that would be a huge lie. I was so shocked that I couldn't think of anything to say.

Bakura laughed suddenly, and the sound was so humorless and chilling that I shuddered.

"I know what you're thinking. How could the Pharaoh have done something against me? Against a thief? You must think I'm just exaggerating."

"I don't understand," I said simply. I really didn't, and I hoped that he would continue.

"It's a long story," Bakura said, closing off again, and I didn't miss his eagerness to close the subject. "Maybe for another night."

But I found my voice again.

"No. You can't just say something so ridiculous and then not tell me what happened. Tell me now."

"Oh, ridiculous, is it?" Bakura snapped, and I knew right then that I'd crossed his limits. "I'd like to see what you'd do if your entire family was murdered, and their body parts were ripped up and thrown into a pit of fire, and then some fucking chunks of gold were made out of them? Would you say it's unreasonable, then, to want to kill the asshole of a king who ordered that?"

I sat entirely still, dumbstruck. I tried to grasp at the straws that he was giving me, but I couldn't make sense of them.

"What happened?"

"The Millennium Items happened, that's what," Bakura said. "I wonder if you ever realized where they came from, or if you thought they just dropped down from the gods. It makes me sick, the way that nobody knows. The way that I'm the only one who knows but no one will believe me."

I had to make him backtrack before he could lose me completely.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Can you start at the beginning?"

Bakura snorted, folding his arms, but obliged me.

He told me about that night, ten years ago, when he'd watched all the pieces of his life crumble. At dusk, when the sky was blood red on the horizon, the troops had descended. Unannounced, unforeseen—they stampeded through the town on their horses, stole into the village of thieves, and proceeded to raise hell.

Systematically, they rounded up the villagers and started a great, big bonfire. Rounded up like cattle, they coldly slashed their throats and threw their spluttering, lifeless bodies into the pit of fire. They threw some of them into the flames without the mercy of killing them first. Their blood-curdling shrieks boiled up into the night, as the smell of burning and sizzling flesh filled the air.

From the shadowy doorway of a hut, Bakura had watched. And then, after all the men and women and children of Kul Elna had been thrown into the fire, the ritual began. A tall, bearded, and regal man chanted to the gods, asking them to use this sacrifice to produce gold powerful enough to protect a whole kingdom, gold to identify and persecute all criminals and enemies of the king, to destroy the likes of those they had destroyed that night.

And sure enough, he was granted this wish. And the beautiful, glinting gold of the Millennium items was born, winking in the moonlight, not a speck of blood on them to betray the sickening darkness that had given them birth.

I was quiet for a long time after Bakura finished speaking. The story had winded me, and I had to recover. I didn't doubt for a moment that it was true; Bakura had dredged up the will and the voice to tell me all this in a choppy, quiet way. Unwilling to relive it but obligated nonetheless. On some level, I think he was glad to tell me. I was, after all, the first and only person he had ever told.

I had known for a long time that the palace was wicked, that power and greed ruled where justice and mercy should have led. But it disgusted me to learn how far one king would go to protect his own people. It was more reason to escape. Better to die outside the palace walls than to wither within them.

"I'm sorry," I finally said.

Bakura's face was in shadows. He gripped the knife tightly, sitting deceptively still.

"You didn't do anything," he said in a taut voice. "Don't apologize."

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know whether to speak or let the silence consume us.

"So now you know," Bakura said. "That's why I need the diadankh. To repay the Pharaoh for everything he did to me."

I looked at him cautiously, wondering how far I could dig in his unsteady state. "You said before that you know your ka is very strong. How are you so sure?"

Bakura seemed to hesitate. "It's because… it's the strength of my people. It's their cunning and power and hatred. Over the years, I've felt it grow stronger. I have no doubt that paired with the diadankh, it will be invincible."

Such conviction shook me. His confidence was colossal, but it wasn't foolhardy self-assurance; it was trust. It was the confidence of a man who believed in his people, and that absolute trust overwhelmed me. It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that this trust alone garnered him all my regard and respect.

"You believe very strongly in your people," I said simply.

Bakura finally turned to face me. The shadows in his eyes shifted and he gave me a small smile.

"I've got nothing else to believe in."

I had completely misjudged him. He wasn't just a petty thief. Far from it, he was perhaps the most respectable person I had ever met. The discipline, the patience that such revenge required—he was selfless.

There was just one thing that didn't add up.

"Just this morning," I started, hoping to make use of our free-flowing conversation, "you were disgusted with me for not killing the guard. You said you'd killed whenever you had to, murdering without stopping to think. You said I was pathetic for hesitating. That it was weak. But after what you're just told me, I can't see you killing in cold blood."

Bakura looked at me for a long time, clearly taken aback.

"I lied," he admitted.

"You lied," I restated skeptically.

Bakura sounded embarrassed. "I was angry that the guard caught us, and the only one I could blame was you. I was just telling you something I've always told myself."

"And what is that?"

"To kill," Bakura said simply. "Kill if you have to. Kill and forget that you killed. It's so easy to say it to yourself but then you're faced with a human being in the flesh, and it's ten times harder to pull the dagger out of your belt and make the killing blow."

"So when you said you always killed first—that you avoided all those times you were cornered by killing– you lied," I said. "You didn't kill at all."

"That's not completely true. I killed once."

I thought back. "That's right. The soldier in the market, years ago. That was a petty crime. So why did you go so far?"

"I recognized him," he said slowly. "The soldier from the market was a soldier from that night. He was one of those who murdered my family and threw them into the fire." He had to pause, as though to gather his breath, as though the memory was suffocating him. "I couldn't help it. One look at him and I wanted to murder him. I lost control and did it without thinking."

"He deserved it, then," I said, as the pieces of the story fit together. "You had more than enough right."

"Did I?" Bakura asked. "Sometimes I'm not so sure. Sometimes I wonder if all the hatred will just push me over the edge and I'll murder in cold blood, just like them."

I had no idea what to say to that. I recognized that the death of his village must have left a twisted, haunting pain in his heart, but his intentions were dignified.

I rerouted, as another thought occurred to me. "Is that how you got the scar on your face, then? I've always heard that the guard from the market left you with that scar before you killed him."

Bakura's face hardened. "No, it's not. Not the whole scar, at least."

That was strange. A scar composed at different times and in different pieces.

"Which part did he make, then?"

Bakura's hand went to his face as he traced it. "The line that goes straight down."

"What about the rest?" I asked. "The two lines across?"

"I made those cuts myself."

I was too shocked to reply for a moment.

I was sick to my stomach as I imagined him laying a knife against his face and letting the blade slice through the skin, letting the blood burst out and flow and flow. He must have been mad.

"Why would you do that?"

"To remind myself," said Bakura. "To be able to look into the Nile, or a slice of gold, and see my reflection. To make this a symbol of my revenge so that I don't stray. So I remember that somewhere in this kingdom still lives the person who robbed me of everything."

I was still for a long time. His determination was shocking. Everything in his life revolved around this single conviction, and I didn't know whether to think him crazy or brave.

Perhaps both.

Finally, I found my voice and said the first thing that came to mind.

"I admire you, Bakura."

He looked at me, surprised.

"I would have never guessed, just meeting you yesterday, what a strong person you are," I continued, not knowing where these words were coming from, but knowing deeply that they were true.

Bakura shifted, looking at me in wonder. His hand rose, as if he wanted to hug me or touch me out of sheer emotion, but it went no further. I smiled and finished the motion for him.

Wrapping my arms around him, I pressed us close. His body was warm and solid as I pressed my face into his hair and felt my heart speed up.

Very imperceptibly, I realized that he was trembling. This was earth-shattering to him, I realized. Never in his life, I'm sure, had anyone see him for who he was. A dedicated, self-driven—and yes, crazy—individual who had given up his life to his people. What had anyone else seen, except a greedy thief?

I tightened my grip. I didn't want to let go. I wanted to keep my arms locked around both this little boy and this grown man. This contradiction of maturity and insecurity.

I drew back slightly and his face was near mine. My hands lowered from his shoulders to his chest, and I ran my fingertips over his crisscrossing scars.

His breath hitched, and I loved that sound. There was something intimate about this, and far more intense than the sex. I wanted him wholly right then; I wanted all of his contradictions and maturity and youth.

My fingers went around his face, and I drew forward, letting the feeling take me. I pressed my lips to his, leaning across to push him down to the floor.

For a split second, his mouth opened to mine.

Then, his hands were on my chest, pushing me back.

"Don't—" he said quietly. As though rebelling both against me and himself. "Our deal, remember? Kissing's only for—"

"Lovers and friends," I finished, drawing back.

I felt cold suddenly, and the feeling that I knew him and sympathized with him abruptly left me. I was wrong to think that I knew him at all.

He stood up and crossed to the other side of the room, creating distance between us. The hollowness in my chest gave way to embarrassment, as I wondered why I had let myself feel this.

I didn't help matters at all when quietly, in the stillness of the night, I asked:

"Are we still neither, then?"

Bakura didn't reply. He sat against the wall and looked up through the thin window slit, not once looking back at me.

I sat in my own corner of the room, feeling inexplicably lost and angry at myself. What had I expected, really? That a single, heartfelt conversation would break barriers? Maybe it broke some, but not all. He was still tense and alone—and that's how he wanted to be. He never once wanted my sympathy. He never once asked for it.

I fell asleep with flames and winking gold in my dreams, with my hands reaching toward a boy with a beautiful scar and a wall around his heart.

In the morning, Bakura was gone.


	8. Anket Descends

I awoke in a panic.

As I scrambled up from the floor, wildly scanning the small room, I felt its tendrils clench and suffocate me, and I stumbled on the alarming thought that maybe I had dreamt the past day.

But as I moved, a sharp, deep pain shot through my spine, and I couldn't deny my memories. It had happened, and the man responsible for what I felt now was gone.

Bakura was gone.

I searched the whole room. My instinct was to believe that it had been out of his control—that maybe the guard had snatched him in the middle of the night and strangled him and thrown his body into the Nile. It was a morbid thought, but somehow the alternative was even more sickening—that he'd left of his own volition, escaping into the night without a word.

My fingers shook as I yanked at the door latch. It stayed shut, but I noticed that it was loose, as if it had been pried open. And as the darkening realization rushed to my heart, something caught my eye, glinting by the door.

The knife.

The damned, useless, dull knife that had kept us company in our attempt to break through our barriers and distill the poison in our veins.

Here it was now, no longer a comfort but a joke. Did he leave it there on purpose, I wondered? It was a more gut-wrenching fuck you than if he had actually said the words to my face.

My hands fell from the latch and I saw nothing but blinding, bludgeoning red.

I grabbed the first thing I could find, which was the empty tin pitcher, and twisted the metal into the shape of my heart, full of cold, strangled fury, and then slammed it against the wall. The clang was dully satisfying.

And really, it should've been obvious.

His every word and move was poised for this moment. He had calculatingly bided his time, waiting until I was asleep. It made sense now, why he'd been so irritable when I awoke last night. The last thing he'd wanted was my interference.

My hand fell to my thigh and I felt the dried blood there. I was reminded of the sound of his strangled, ecstatic cry as he came and dragged his nails over my hips. I damned myself.

I was a fucking idiot to see anything but self-preservation in him. Oh, he was selfless alright, if that meant he'd do anything to save his own skin. But he wasn't sympathetic. He wasn't generous and he wasn't kind. He saw nothing past the self-fashioned cuts on his face and the shackles on his own wrists. And I was an idiot to think that he would.

I grabbed the knife and strode to the hole beneath the wall and started digging.

The dirt was hard-packed but I was furious. My hands trembled. My shoulders shook with the effort of loosening the pebbles and dirt and godforsaken shit that was lodged in the ground.

I lost myself to the adrenaline.

Somewhere far away I heard shouts. If they were joyous or fear-stricken, I didn't know and I didn't care.

I was focused on not being focused. Thinking to try not to think. It went on for hours until I made a mess of the floor and an even bigger mess of my mind. After a while, I dropped the knife and went at it with my hands. I sliced the ground and it sliced me back.

Instead of dirt, I felt warm, damp skin under my fingers. A shuddering breath in my ear. A suckling kiss against my neck. I clenched the dirt, strangling it, hopping he'd know how much I hated the feelings he left me with.

The dirt felt damp. The more I dug, the less I believed my fantasies and the more I realized the ground really was wet. I could see clearly under the wall then and what I saw surprised me.

Running water.

A creek rushing to fill in the hole and loosening the dirt. Before long, I found my hands in more water than dirt, and I scrambled to dig faster.

It had worked. The Nile was flooding. I was near the river, and more importantly, I was facing the current.

I watched, overjoyed, as the water streamed into the cell. Before the silt could settle, the Nile continued to rush inside like a wide snake. I dropped back on the floor, too stunned to move. Suddenly, bubbling laughter shook me. The mud splattered on my legs as I trembled and laughed, hysterical with so much emotion.

I kneeled again by the wall to scoop up the mud and wrench it out of the way. Then, finding the knife, I started digging at the bricks to loosen the dirt between them.

I watched as the first brick miraculously fell with a plop into the water. And then the next. And then the next.

The hole was wide enough now to fit my shoulders. I had no idea how long I had sat there in my pitiful misery and now my overjoyed pride, but it was time. It was growing late in the day, and I remembered briefly that the festival must have already taken place. That might have explained the shouts I'd heard earlier.

I dropped the knife in the water. By now, the whole cell was filled with the stench of silt and the lukewarm river. I smelled reeds and salt and more importantly, escape, tangy and clean in the air.

I dropped to the ground to fit my arms under the wall. Then, taking a deep breath, I plunged my head underneath, launching against the current and incoming water, and scrambled to the outside surface as rocks and dirt splashed my face.

Suddenly, something grabbed me.

I was dragged backward, spluttering as my mouth opened to scream. Instead of air, I swallowed a rush of water and dirt.

My head bobbed back up. I jumped back to the surface, still on the inside of the cell, coughing up sand and silt.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The voice was low and thundering. Instantly, the invigorating hope in my chest vanished, replaced by fear.

I struggled to open my eyes. I was still spluttering, choked with dirt. My body convulsed with the shock of being dragged over the ground so forcefully.

Something gripped the back of my head, dragging me to my feet.

"I asked, what the hell are you doing?" the voice rang again.

I found myself face to face with a pair of black eyes. Black eyebrows and veins popping in the man's neck and red face.

The guard.

Shit, was all I could think. Shit.

"I see you had your own little project here," he continued.

The grip on my hair tightened and the motion reminded me all too clearly of my father.

"Did you really think you could run off, just like that?" His putrid breath was in my face.

I struggled to wrench out of his grip.

"Get your hands off of me!"

He slammed me into the wall, knocking the breath out of me. My throat stung with the water that was still lodged in it.

"Clearly, I've be been too kind," he drawled, "letting you live this long."

I didn't give him the satisfaction of speaking this time.

"How would you like it done, then?" The sound of a sword being unsheathed reached my ears. "Should I make it quick or do you like it slow?"

I kept my mouth shut, letting this run its course. I didn't even have the knife on me, being the idiot that I was and leaving it on the ground.

"Something tells me you prefer slow pain," he said, his eyes glinting, "by the sounds coming from here last night."

My heart stopped. I gave him a furious, wide-eyed look, but he only smiled.

"You seemed to enjoy that bastard toying with you. Having his seed all over you."

My tongue went dry and heavy as I uttered, "Were you listening? You sick bastard."

His eyes narrowed as his arm slowly rose and I felt the sharp khopesh at my throat.

"I wouldn't be talking."

I couldn't let him distract me. As I thought of Bakura, something occurred to me.

"Where is he now?" I asked forcefully.

"The thief?" The blade drew closer. "Why don't I send you down so you can see him yourself?"

Cold fear crawled up my spine. For a moment, I wasn't even scared for my own life as his words took root.

"Is he dead?"

His smile widened.

"Not yet," he said in a satisfied voice, enjoying his leverage. "But soon."

I had to reroute. Bakura had escaped on his own, of that I was sure. But he must have been caught. And now, if I let myself die, I would be killing the both of us.

I surprised myself to feel concerned for Bakura, after he'd betrayed me. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he'd acted on instinct. He'd acted on the impulse he'd developed over the years, while waking and walking and breathing alone. He was still an asshole for what he'd done, but I also realized that one day of companionship wasn't enough to change lifelong instincts.

"Where did you find him?" I asked carefully.

The guard was like my father. He would enjoy making me writhe and squirm. So he would talk if it meant the words would hurt.

"He didn't get very far," the guard revealed, as I'd expected. "I heard him unlocking the door and I waited. I wanted him to think he had a chance."

Oh yes, of course he did. It was a game to him, not a life.

"And then, just before he was out the door, I hit him right upside the head. The dumbass had no idea it was even coming."

"So where is he now?"

"Oh, you think I'm easy, do you?" the guard laughed. "You won't be getting out of here alive, and neither will he, so that information is of no use to you."

I smiled.

"But still, you must be satisfied with yourself and what you did. I'm sure you left him somewhere it would be hard to find. Somewhere where he would die alone without anyone to hear him. I assume you kicked him a couple of times, too. Maybe you even shackled him."

He looked unreadable.

"Maybe I did," he said. "Maybe I didn't. Either way, it means nothing to you now."

I didn't budge. My pretense was perfected. It was flawless.

"But how great would it feel if you knew what he meant to me?"

"You liked that?" the man laughed. "You're sicker than I thought."

I shrugged, distinctly aware of the knife still at my throat. I had to crane my head back slightly to avoid it slicing my skin. As I did so, I shifted imperceptibly, letting my hand edge toward his sword arm.

"There are all sorts in this world," I said carelessly. "You have no room to judge."

His blade edged closer. "And how do you figure that?"

"Would you have given my sister an audience with me without the gold?" I asked, moving slowly and silently. "I've lived in the Pharaoh's court. I know the laws. We can't be treated as criminals until we're sentenced, so you had no right to withhold the visit without a bribe."

His lip curled upward until he looked like a dog baring its teeth.

"I found you two right in the middle of the shrine," he growled. "Try to tell me you weren't trying to steal the diadankh. Just try to tell me that neither of you motherfuckers are thieves."

I just needed to keep him distracted.

"You have no proof," I said, as my mouth drew into a smile. "Ma'at judges through the Pharaoh, through the trial. But you couldn't wait, could you? You came in to kill me. Even if I wasn't planning to run off, you were still going to slit my throat without an actual sentence—"

He moved then, but I moved quicker.

My fingers closed around his forearm before it could bear down, and for a split second, we were locked. He pressed the khopesh forward, right against my throat, but I pressed back on his arm just as hard. His black eyes were on mine. Two bottomless holes.

Then, I did two things at once. Craning my head back further, I twisted his sword arm, narrowly avoiding the fatal slice as I ripped the joint out of its socket.

He shouted. He tried to maneuver the sword back around, but his arm was useless now, and he couldn't manage a straight cut. I made to leap back out of his immediate range. Just as I drew back, I had a split second to foresee his movement and while in mid-motion, I couldn't turn to stop it.

His foot shot out, hooking around mine, and I stumbled, falling with a splash to the ground.

I landed in mud. The cell was still filling with water, and we were near the wall.

"You think you're so smart," he breathed, looming over me. "Trying to predict what I'll do."

I tried to stand but he slammed his foot down on my chest, keeping me still. I coughed violently at the crushing force, but he pressed down harder until I could barely breathe.

"Gods," I growled. "You fucker."

He leaned down and I realized that he'd switched hands now. The sword was clenched in his left fist. His lips widened into a crooked smile.

"You won't get out this time," he said, self-satisfied.

His blade edged toward my chest. He was aiming for my heart.

The water was splashing over my face and my sides now. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to think. I couldn't move. The force on my chest was constraining my lungs. The water drenched me, rising. Maybe he was planning to drown me? Keep me stuck long enough that the water would do the work for him?

What could I do? What did I have left?

I grasped the mud under my fingers, clenching my teeth. I wouldn't die like this. I hadn't gone all this way to let it end now. And Bakura… I reached for him. My hand moved across the rough silt as I thought of him, and the state he must be in right now.

Suddenly, I felt something cold beneath my fingertips. Under the mud lay something smooth and bent, and slowly, I moved my fingers over the object. It felt metallic. Could it really be…

The knife.

The dull knife Bakura had kept hidden under his clothes. The knife I had used to dig the hole and remove the bricks. The knife I had used to carve my mother's name into the wall.

The knife Bakura had left here for me.

My eyes widened as the realization slammed me hard. He hadn't meant to leave the dagger as a joke after all. Somehow, he'd known that I would need it. He'd left it here not to be malicious but to be sympathetic. It was the only thing he owned, walking into this prison cell. And he'd left the dagger here, knowing it might be the only thing that could save me.

I was so overwhelmed, I could have cried.

"Pray to the gods, kid. It's the only thing that'll save you now."

I snapped my eyes open to see the guard bend down, his sword poised for the kill. His eyes were so black. Utterly black, and I couldn't have hated that color any more than I hated it right then.

It was the color of my father. It was the color of venom.

My fingers clenched around the knife. I wouldn't hesitate this time. I would do this quickly or not at all. I would kill or let myself be killed.

The sword came down.

I lunged forward out of the water, dagger in hand, while he reached down. For a moment, all I saw was a blur. I rose against the heel of his foot, straining against the crushing force on my lungs with only one thought in mind. I aimed.

For a split second, I wasn't sure what had happened next.

I felt pain shoot through my shoulder, as if the flesh there had been ripped apart. I heard a gasp. I found that my fingers were still clenched around the dagger. My hand clasped it so tightly that the metal was digging into my skin. I looked up.

The guard's eyes were wide open.

He wasn't moving.

And as my gaze dropped to his chest, I saw blood. My fingers were clenched around the hilt of the dagger and the fabric of his shirt. The blade was entirely imbedded in his skin. In his heart.

I scrambled up from beneath him as his body fell forward into the mud. I shook as I realized what I had just done—I had stabbed a man in the heart. And not just any man, but one of the Pharaoh's guards. A man protected by Ma'at.

The only thing I found disturbing about killing him was that I felt no remorse. It was his life or mine, and whether or not it was cold of me, that choice was easy to make.

I glanced at the water still streaming into the cell, and leaned down to clean off the blood from the dagger before slipping it into my belt. I was free to leave. No one would stop me now. If I valued my life that much, I would just slide under the wall and head toward the horizon.

Instead, I turned and made for the cell door.

Murderer or not, I was still honorable above all.

And I owed him my life now.


	9. Meret Rejoices

It only took a few steps for me to understand the source of the pain in my shoulder.

The guard had aimed for my heart too, but I had moved at the last second, narrowly avoiding the blade's intended target as it cut my shoulder instead. I was far luckier than I had any right to be.

The horse stable consisted of a maze of rooms. I walked out into a dank and dark hallway, feeling the constant stream of water at my feet. I had no idea where to look, but I was sure that Bakura was in the building somewhere.

I felt the bitter sting of betrayal in my throat as I thought of him, but it subsided when I placed my fingertips over the hilt of the dagger. The knowledge that I had used his knife to kill the guard was all I needed to keep going.

I tried to think of all the clues the guard had left me. There was something in our conversation that stood out. Something like, do you want me to send you down so you can see him yourself?

I was certain that the guard had meant something other than the underworld by that. He'd wanted him to drown. He'd wanted Bakura hidden from plain sight and to die alone. He'd known about the river rising and had counted on it to be his assassin.

I wound through the snaking hallway. The mud splashed over my legs as I strode across the river stream. The water was still rising. I realized suddenly that Bakura had probably been captured late last night, and he'd probably been chained this whole time. I doubted he had any strength to help himself.

This thought alone spurred me to move faster. I lost track of where I was in the building—all the hallways looked alike. There were other rooms with doors thrown wide open, but no one was there.

Finally, I reached what looked like the end of the hallway. Before me was a smooth, circular wall. A large staircase wound down in a spiraling column, reaching deep into the ground. It was fashioned out of carefully-cut limestone blocks, and as I approached it, I realized its purpose.

My sister used structures like this to predict the rise of the Nile each year. There were normally markings on the walls which measured the amount of water filling the structure each year. A priestess or priest had to come down the winding spiral to record the measurements. I was surprised to find it here, of all places.

Suddenly, I heard a clanking noise coming from further down the staircase. The sound reverberated against the round walls. I drew closer to look down into the pit, and when I saw the source, my stomach dropped.

"Bakura?" I called.

His head snapped up. I was surprised to find a pair of fear-stricken eyes on mine.

He was chained to the wall with both arms on either side of his head. The short chains were fixed on a hook in the wall of the staircase itself. The entire staircase had been filling with water over the past several months, as the Nile rose, but now it was filling rapidly with water that had spilled over the banks today. The river was streaming over the sides of the staircase and rising quickly. The water had already reached Bakura's chest.

"Marik!" He sounded shocked, as though he'd never expected to say my name again. "How—"

I dropped down the staircase and took the steps three at a time, keeping my hand on the wall so I wouldn't slip and fall into the cavern of water captured in the middle of the winding stairs. The water steadily rose to my knees, then to my thighs, then to my stomach as I descended down the staircase. Finally, I reached him and we were face to face.

"How did you find me?" he asked. His white hair was dirty and matted to his forehead and his eyes had a wild, desperate look to them. There was a cut over his left eyebrow, where I imagined the guard had hit him across the face, and a stream of blood from the corner of his mouth, where I imagined the guard had punched him.

I immediately reached up to the chains. We didn't have much time. If the river kept spilling into the structure, the level would rise above his head and since he was chained to the wall, he couldn't escape. He would drown. And I would be forced to watch.

"Something the guard told me," I muttered, concentrating on the heavy chains. "I figured you'd still be in the building."

Bakura's breath was shallow. "How did you get free?"

I smiled humorlessly. "I broke through the cell wall, like I told you I would."

He had the decency to look sheepish.

I wrenched at the chains and at the hook stuck in the wall, but I couldn't break them loose. I wasn't strong enough to pry them off, and it really was no surprise. I had sustained a lot of damage in the past two days. I hadn't eaten this whole time and had barely slept. My shoulder was shredded. But despite all that, I had no choice. I had to get us out.

"Shit," I muttered. "I can't break the chain."

Bakura's grey eyes were on me. I imagined all the damage he must have sustained in the past day. He'd been chained this whole time. The guard had probably beaten him unconscious. He'd been forced to watch helplessly as the water level rose slowly up his body and reached his chest.

"You don't owe me anything," he said. "This was my decision, and I'll live with it. You can get out—"

"Shut the hell up," I cut him off. I had no comfort to offer him, but I wasn't going to allow those sorts of words.

With that, I turned from him, and waded back up the steps. I needed something stronger than my two hands. I needed something firmer. As I thought of the water still streaming over the stairs, my stride lengthened and I took three steps at a time up the staircase.

"I'll be back," I called over my shoulder as I stepped back into the hallway. Behind me, I heard the clinking of chains as Bakura struggled.

I breached the maze again. The water flow had increased. It rushed at me quickly, almost at my knees.

I had stumbled on the staircase by accident, while hurrying through the hall, but I needed a surefire way back. Grabbing the dagger out of my belt, I angled it, pressed it to the hallway wall, and let the blade scrape the brick as I waded. If I got lost, the line I cut into the wall would lead me back.

At each open doorway, I glanced into the room. Mostly, the cells were empty, filling with water. The horse stable must have been abandoned for a long time. I guessed that the guards only used it to house prisoners for the short period before the trial. Although, I thought bitterly, the guard I'd murdered had probably been killing them off before they could be justly tried.

After searching through dozens of rooms, I started to lose hope. The stench of the Nile—once the welcome smell of escape—filled my nostrils and reminded me that Bakura had little time left. Panic was setting in. I scraped the wall more forcefully. The jarring sound of metal on brick did nothing to slow the adrenaline rushing to my heart.

Finally, I reached what seemed like the opposite side of the building. A door stood locked at the end. My pulse sped up at the realization. If it was locked, it must have contained something important.

I struck the knife into the cavity of the lock's crossbar. Maneuvering the blade haphazardly, I splintered the wood, driving the door open. I looked into the room, and I was overwhelmed with what I found inside.

Weapons.

Knives, axes, spears, sickleswords, and hatchets. I thanked all the war gods I could remember: Ankt and Sekhmet and Bast and Maahes. This must have been the guards' storage unit. I had no time to examine all the weapons, because I grabbed the nearest thing I could find—a piercing axe that was boasted to penetrate armor—and strode back out of the room.

I hurried back through the maze, following the line in the wall. My shoulder throbbed as I waded, carrying the long-handled axe at my side, but the pain was slight in light of my gratitude.

I quickly found my way back to the staircase. Dropping over the edge, I stepped down the stairs, careful not to fall. When I glanced down at Bakura, the dread slammed back into me, as forceful and alarming as before.

The water was at his neck. He was standing precariously on the stairs, trying not to slip.

"Oh gods," I breathed, and splashed down through the water.

"What is that?" he asked, breathless, staring at the weapon in my hands. "What are you going to do?"

My fingers were shaking as I descended until the water reached my chest. The chains were short. I had to hit them perfectly. The alternative was something I tried hard to shove to the back of my head—that if I missed, I could cut off his hand. I could slice open his neck. I could kill him.

It was difficult to maneuver while most of my body was underwater. I took a deep breath and decided to practice the movement first. After all, I had never used an axe before.

Aiming for a spot on the wall two feet from him, I hauled the axe up over my head and instinctively squeezed my eyes shut before I slammed it down hard.

The metal struck inches from his head. I cursed under my breath, despising my aim.

"What the hell are you doing?" Bakura snapped, after the axe almost hit his head. "Are you aiming for the chains?"

"Yes," I lied. "Stay still. I'm going to try again."

Bakura looked up at me, his jaw clenched but his eyes fearful. I found myself praying to the gods while staring into his grey eyes. It was as if the whole world slowed suddenly, as I raised the axe again. My palms were sweating. My mouth was dry. My blood rushed through my veins, winding and cascading.

I asked the gods for fortitude. I asked for precision. I asked for conviction, because it was hard to believe in myself right then.

Glancing down one last time, I saw Bakura's lips curl into a smile.

"I know you weren't aiming for the chains just now," he said ruefully. "But that doesn't really matter."

"Then what does?" I whispered as the axe was poised over my head. Ready to save or to kill him.

The faith tingeing his face surprised me.

"That I trust you."

He said nothing else, and I found that I didn't need anything else. I raised the axe high, feeling the smooth and strong wooden handle in my hands. I aimed. And not losing another moment, I brought the blade crashing down.

I felt the breath knock out of me.

The sound that emerged shook my whole body. I shuddered with its echoing ring, drowned in its fortunate cry.

It was the sound of metal hitting metal. The sound of the axe blade hitting the iron chain on his shackles, splitting the metal apart as the hook snapped from the wall and fell with a plop into the water.

I dropped the axe. It fell somewhere deep in the cavern between the stairs, slipping into the abyss and sealing our triumph.

I heard the iron shackles ring and a splash before I felt Bakura's solid body slam into mine and his arms wrap around me. His wet hair splattered across my face as his musky smell overwhelmed me. Gods, I had never guessed that I would miss his smell so much. The water splashed around us, still rising, but the slick feeling of our wet skin pressed together was indescribable.

He smashed his lips into mine, pushing me back up the stairs. His mouth was eager and hungry. I pressed back with as much, if not more, need. His tongue slipped into my mouth for only a single moment, before my tongue slipped into his. Our teeth clashed in hurry. I grabbed his hair between my fingers, pulling his head closer.

The feeling was overwhelming. I was choked with how much I could want a single person.

"You asshole," I breathed between our broken, jagged kisses. "You're such an asshole."

I heard Bakura take a shaky breath. I felt what he felt. Bubbling laughter rising in our chests, hysterical disbelief that we were here, we were alive, and we were free.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Those words alone would never be enough—they wouldn't dispel the panic and anger I'd felt upon waking up that morning, and they wouldn't make up for the tear in my shoulder. But his actions had spoken more than words ever could.

My hand slipped down to my belt and I pulled the dagger up to show him its blunt edge.

"You found it?" he asked, drawing back from me and taking the blade.

I nodded. "You left it there for me, didn't you?"

Bakura smiled.

"I knew it wouldn't be enough, but it's all I had."

"Wrong," I said simply. "It was enough. It was all I needed."

Bakura frowned as he looked up from the blade to me. "The guard—"

"He's dead," I answered, and turned to wade back up the steps. The cavern was still filling, and darkness was falling. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck here for another night.

I turned back to find Bakura staring at me in wonder. I tilted my head, asking, "What?"

Bakura shook his head and started wading up the staircase, splashing as he took one step at a time.

"Sometimes, I feel like I really misjudged you."

I laughed as I waited for him to catch up, and then extended my hand out to him.

"Likewise."

The sun was setting over the Nile as we stood on the hills above the flooded crops. The river had covered the entire stretch of land near the banks, flooding everything in its path. We had escaped through a door at the far end of the horse stable and waded up to higher ground. Somewhere in the distance, the festival was ending. Shouts echoed across the hill and I imagined the farmers and villagers who had lost their year's worth of crops.

The sound of clinking iron was at my side.

"It's hard to believe how fast the Nile flooded," Bakura said, looking down at the glistening waters. "In just two days, it covered everything."

I snorted, remembering the way he'd scoffed at me for trying to cut through the wall. "I told you it would flood fast."

Bakura looked at me tartly.

In just two days—that's all it had taken for the feeling in my chest to grip me every time I looked at Bakura. Of course, it would still take time. I wasn't sure how keen he was on staying with me now that we were free. Even so, we'd found something more than sex and attraction and companionship in each other. Sealed between us was this experience, fortifying us.

"So what now?" I asked, looking across the flooded fields. The water, like us, was a savior and an assassin. But above all, it was a refreshing start.

Bakura's glance was on the palace. "I still have the diadankh to steal."

I laughed, remembering what had gotten us here in the first place. Nothing short of blood, sorrow, and fury. Two nights ago, I had broken into a temple to steal the most valuable thing I could find. I had set out for the boundless horizon and the greatest expanse of desert this land could offer. And now, that was exactly what I faced.

"Of course. Good luck with that," I said, not wanting to assume that our paths were still crossing, should he scoff at the prospect.

Bakura shifted, looking into the distance.

"I could use some help."

The words sounded strange coming from him. I stared at Bakura for a second, before my lips curled up into a smile. While he still stared into the distance, I reached out and grasped his fingers cautiously. He intertwined our two hands without looking.

"Considering how terrible you are at stealing things, maybe you do," I teased.

Bakura smiled, not even taking the bite.

The horizon was tinged with a burning red, before giving way to the black night. This was the time of day we both craved. The time when our hearts were flushed with adrenaline and the moon guided our measured footsteps. I greeted the night with a companion by my side.

The wind was clean as it rushed at me, the shadows pressed like a mask to my face.

And the venom—after years of smothering my every move and my every breath—finally, irrevocably vanished from my veins.


End file.
